


But if I wear my heart on my skin they might see it breaking

by DisplacedWarrior



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex and Maggie are soulmates, Alex pretty much doesn't know what paper is, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Growing Up, Lucy might be their soulmate as well, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Danvers Sisters - Freeform, canon fusion, teen Maggie/Lucy, who knows? certainly not them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:26:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 66,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisplacedWarrior/pseuds/DisplacedWarrior
Summary: Soulmate AU where anything you write on your skin shows up on your soulmate's.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few instances of homophobic/racial slurs and some related violence mostly in the form of fist fights. Nothing too graphic but mentions of injuries and blood in case anyone needs a heads up. 
> 
> Also at the very very end of this chapter, literally the last paragraph is implied self-harm, if anyone needs a trigger warning for that.

Pain radiates throughout her entire body and _Jesus fuck_ how could she forget how much this _hurt?_ Three years really wasn't that much of a time span but here Maria was, questioning how it was possible to suppress the memory of this much pain ever, let alone in a few short years.

Maria originally insisted on going to the nearest hospital in Beatrice this time around, the last birth having more than filled her quota for doing things the natural— see drug free way.

The announcement of that decision drove her mother to make the sign of the cross before launching into the first of many arguments. A midwife by trade, MarÍlia had delivered her first grandchild herself. Much revered, she was highly sought after not only in her village but in several surrounding ones before moving to America to marry.

Thus she was not about to keep her very strong opinions on such matters to herself.

Of course, Maria’s second daughter decided to arrive as early as the first one was late. It was situations like these that had Maria wondering if her mother didn’t have some divine connections that went beyond simple faith.

And so Maria finds herself staring at the off-white walls of the three-room doctor’s office in town cursing any deity that came to mind.

Not out loud, of course, her mother would _not_ hesitate to smack her just because she was in labor.

Another set of contractions begin and Maria lets out an agonizing groan, drowning out the soft Portuguese murmuring coming from her left.

Right now she would kill for a shot of something harder than the herb mixes her mother insisted on throughout the pregnancy.

Maria tried not to be bitter about the fact that her husband was probably a few drinks in at the moment. She doesn’t begrudge him the company of his friends or even the location of the bar over pacing in the hallway. After all, it was her mother’s insistence that birthing was women’s work outside the purview of men that had him out of the room to begin with.

Not that he had put up much of a fight, either time. At least the bar is closer this time around.

In any case, he might as well enjoy those drinks; he’ll be on middle-of-the-night baby duty for the first two months if she has anything to say about it.  

Maria grips her mother’s hand tighter as the doctor starts encouraging her to push. One thing was for absolute certain, she was done after this one. If Johnny wanted any more kids he could find a way to push them out of his own damn body.

The pain is distracting enough that she can pretend she doesn’t see her mother’s eyes narrow as if the woman somehow knew about all the irreligious thoughts that had been parading through her daughter’s brain.

Maria glances down and sees the beginnings of a ‘B’ start to appear on her skin. She huffs out a laugh when the word _Breathe_ becomes visible, bold if a little shaky on her arm.

The laugh turns into a scream that carries over the comforting words of her mother and the firm instructions from the doctor. Amidst the cacophony, Margarida Elena Sawyer comes into the world quietly. They record the official time of birth as 12:01am and one of two nurses hurries across the street to inform the father and the bar by proxy.

Johnny whoops at the good news and buys a round for the bar without a thought to overtime he’ll need to pay it off.

He realizes the date and yells out, “Lucky thirteen!” into the night air as he rushes over to meet his baby girl.

Back in the room, the matriarch of the family watches as the other nurse makes quick work of cleaning off the baby and handing her over to Maria. One minute between Monday the twelfth and Tuesday the thirteenth all she can do is make the sign of the cross and pray the cursed day does not doom the child.

Maria is blissfully unaware of her mother’s fears, too wrapped up in the new life nestled in her arms. She’s so busy gazing into the eyes of her beautiful baby girl that she doesn’t notice the scribbles adorning her baby's arm.

Her mother does though, bringing it to Maria’s attention when she reaches out to softly trace the childish lines.

Maria drifts off into an exhausted sleep and when she wakes hours later to feed her baby she notices the mark is still there. It's the first time but certainly not the last Maria wonders what kind of parents her daughter's soulmate has.

The months pass and the marks turn from scribbles to rough drawings and hesitant letters. It often seems as if not a day goes by without some kind of mark showing up on Maggie’s skin.

By the time Maggie is old enough to ask ‘what’ and ‘why’ her mom has her hands full with Maggie’s unplanned baby sister and her dad is spending nearly as much time at the bar as he does at his job.

Her avó tells her they’re a gift from God that she’ll understand when she’s older.

Maggie hates that phrase, ‘when you’re older’. She wants to know _now_ and Maggie knows just the ‘older’ someone who can help.

Micaela, her _older_ sister is almost eight. Maggie’s seen writing on her skin, too, though nowhere near as often or as much as what shows up on her own.

Maggie finds her sister in the living room watching _Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?_  She shuffles her feet, wanting any answers her sister might have but not wanting to bother her.

Micaela notices Maggie sulking and gently pats the seat next to her on the couch asking Maggie what’s wrong. So Maggie asks why she can’t wash off the ink she always finds all over her skin.

Micaela tells Maggie that the marks are from her soulmate, showing off a small doodle from her own soulmate Brad. Maggie's mouth struggles around the word so she just sits and listens as her big sister weaves together the bits of lore she’s accumulated in her short life.

“So your soulmate is the person you’re most connected to in the whole wide world. Ma says they’re the one person who’s always there for you. When you write or draw on your skin it shows up on your soulmate too.” Micaela motions to the patterns visible on each of their arms.  

“Vovó told me they’re a blessing from God, that when Jesus died to forgive our sins his sacrifice born of love left us with a gift to find our chosen match. So that we may honor God by joining with our soulmate in love and raising our families praising him in thanks.” Micaela echoes the words she’d heard over and over again, especially since she’d been deemed old enough to communicate with her soulmate. Within set boundaries of course.

Something cold settles in the pit of Maggie’s stomach, though she has no real concept as to why. She pulls a blanket off the back of the couch, snuggling deeply into it as Micaela keeps talking.

Micaela looks both ways making sure they’re alone and leans closer to Maggie, whispering conspiratorially.

“I like the version Brad shared with me. His parents told him soulmates exist because once, a long, long time ago, all people had four legs and two heads. And then Zeus threw down thunderbolts, and split everyone into two.”

Maggie scrunches up her nose not recognizing the name, “Who?”

“Uhmm you remember King Triton, Ariel’s dad?”

“Duh.” It was only one of Maggie’s favorite movies, although Maggie wished she could be a mermaid instead of longing to be human. A pretty impossible dream when Maggie had yet to even see a body of water bigger than the bathtub.  

“Okay so, uh, Zeus is kind of like him only instead of ruling part of the sea, Zeus is King of the whole sky and all the other Kings like uh Triton and Poseidon, Triton's...dad.” Micaela was not about to call them gods and possibly _confuse_ her inquisitive baby sister, not at the expense of facing the wrath of Vovó if Maggie mentioned it.

Luckily, Maggie seems to take it as a perfectly acceptable explanation so Micaela continues. “After the split, each person had two legs and one head like we do now. But the separation left both sides desperate to be reunited because they each shared the same soul. And so people were doomed to spend their lives searching for their soul’s other half. Aphrodite the -uh _Queen_ of love- felt bad and received more pleas for help than she could handle. So she gave humanity a gift. A chance for soulmates to find each other through markings on their skin.”

It’s a lot for Maggie to take in young as she is and she ends up latching onto the part about her sister’s soulmate because if he told her what his parents told him then—

“You talk to your s— s- to your —  to Bwad?” Micaela smiles softly as her sister bounces, curious and excited. Maggie grabs onto the spot where little trees dot Micaela’s wrist.

“Yup, here watch.” Maggie looks on as Micaela scrawls across her arm though Maggie only knows what a few of the words mean.

A few minutes pass and Maggie watches with round eyes as the words _Hi Maggie_ form on her sister’s hand.

“I can try?” she asks, voice full of wonder, staring at her own arm, fingers stretching towards the marker in Micaela’s hand.

“You’re too little, Mags.”

“But,” Maggie pouts, “I have lots.” She extends her arm to show off some roughly drawn sea turtles and bunch of letters combined into words that Maggie doesn’t know how to read yet.

“Yeah, I mean you had marks when you were born, that means your soulmate’s older than you. But sorry kid but you’re just gunna have to wait.”

“Why?” Maggie demands.

“Well, you can’t even write yet small fry.”

Maggie squints at her sister, spinning angrily around and stomping over to the bookcase, her tiny fingers struggling to pull out a photo album. She brings it back to the couch where Micaela is sitting, opening it up to a photo where she’s a few days old, jabbing the spot where squiggles are clearly visible on her skin.

“Not letters.”

Micaela considers going to get their mom to handle this but it sounds like she’s finally gotten Marisa down for a nap and she knows her mother could use some rest herself.

“And I can draw now,” Maggie says proudly, thinking about the vaguely dog-shaped picture she made yesterday for her mom.

“I know it’s just— ” Micaela stops, pondering how she’s supposed to explain to Maggie that while technically there aren’t rules to the whole soulmate thing, there are _rules,_ when Maggie’s skin often looks like scrap paper.

In fact, Micaela actually noticed the marks on her newborn sister before any of her own. It turned out that she and Brad were roughly the same age and they both happened to avoid any stray marks until kindergarten. Brad from being an unnaturally neat, only child and Micaela because her parents only kept crayons in reach of their children.

After that, there was the occasional ink smudge or paint smear but it was only earlier that year she had gotten the first intentional mark from her soulmate, a small neat _Hello._ It took a few conversations before her parents allowed her to write back and then it was with very strict ground rules, no last names, no addresses, and no personal identifying information of any kind.

There was also the encouragement to keep the marks small and contained, subtle. It wasn’t a rule itself per se but it was certainly implied. Some of the looks Maggie got around town on particularly _colorful_ days certainly didn’t go unnoticed.  

“The thing is anyone can see the writing Maggie, not just your soulmate and that’s not always good.”  

At three and a half years old Maggie has no way to truly comprehend why that matters; even Micaela is just parroting her elders with the basic knowledge that it’s a safety issue. Although she’s beginning to get old enough to also understand how some people in their small town simply don’t _like_ it.

As it stands, the two are lucky not to have been touched by the type of horrors that might necessitate such warnings. Maggie may not really remember this part of the conversation down the line but her first major case after graduating the academy in Gotham acquaints her with the unspeakably grim reality in the form of a child trafficking ring that uses marks to track pairs of children for abduction and sale on the black market.

Micaela watches Maggie ball her tiny fists, notices the determined gleam in her eyes, the set of her jaw underneath the baby fat and let’s out a deep sigh; her little sister is going to be a force to reckoned with, she can already tell.

“But, it’s mine.” Maggie huffs.

“Yes, but….”

It’s at this point Micaela reasons she _really_ should be fetching her mom or dad or vovó, just an _adult_ of some kind to lay down the law, so to speak. Micaela knows there are _rules_ to this whole soulmate thing except—

Maggie’s soulmate treats her skin like notebook paper and Brad’s parents have  _tattoos_ and because of her own marks Vovó traded one small town life for another where the only _real_ difference was the language and yet it somehow made _all_ the difference.

 _Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego?_ plays in the background and Micaela also knows the world is so much bigger, so much _more_ than tiny little land-locked towns.

Micaela looks at Maggie absentmindedly rubbing at the turtles on her arm. She wonders if she herself would have felt differently, felt the strong need to communicate with her own soulmate so young if she grew like Maggie, never really knowing the sight of unblemished skin.

There isn’t even really a choice in the end, Micaela’s fairly certain no amount of stern lectures or hiding of writing utensils is going to keep Maggie’s curiosity at bay. The least Micaela can do is help channel it until Maggie is old enough because right now she’s still practically a baby. Her soulmate is older, even if doesn’t appear to be by much and maybe there are no rules in the grand scheme of things but they do exist around here so…

Besides the adults in their lives are more hard no’s and ‘because I said so’s’ than negotiation and explanation. Micaela imagines their teenage years will be buckets of fun. For now it means a lot of toddler temper tantrums that Micaela would really rather avoid.

Maggie’s voice cuts through Micaela’s thoughts, soft and hesitant.

“What... if they think I’m not here?” Maggie chews her lip, now that she knows what the marks are, why they are, she doesn’t want her soulmate to feel alone.

 _They’re the one person who’s always there for you_.

Those words chase around Maggie’s mind, she doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t have some kind of ink adorning her skin and Maggie believes it. Soulmate.

Soulmate.

The whole concept of soulmates, of her soulmate, in particular makes Maggie feel warm and floaty like the sun shining on her face while she goes higher and higher on the swing set.

She hopes it makes her soulmate feel the same way.

“Well I guess big girls are allowed to use the marker but I don’t know…..” Micaela pretends to think. “Are you a big girl Maggie?”

Maggie nods eagerly.

“Big girls have to follow rules sometimes, even if they don’t always like them.”

“Like carrots?” Maggie’s nose scrunches.

“Yeah, exactly like eating your carrots so you can grow, short stuff.” Micaela struggles with how to get Maggie to listen to the same rules she herself promised to her parents before they let her talk to Brad when her sister couldn’t even technically communicate with her soulmate yet.   

“I know right now you just want your soulmate to know you're _here.”_ Micaela emphasizes the expression Maggie herself used, “ but you can’t tell him your name, or where you live or what you look like. Not until you're at least my age, then we can talk about it again.”

“I can say I like dogs and ‘saurs?”

“Yeah, Mags you can tell ‘em you like dogs and dinosaurs, even what kinds but not the other stuff. It’s _really_ important okay?”

She watched as Maggie seriously nodded before smiling, “Okay.”

“Oh, and you can’t tell the adults I let you, okay? Promise?”

She probably shouldn’t be teaching her toddler sister to lie to their parents but…

“I pwomise.” Maggie says solemnly.

“Pinky promise, Mags.” Micaela says holding out her pinky finger.  

Maggie links their fingers together repeating, “Pinky pwomise.” with all the severity of swearing to tell the whole truth in a court of law.

It would be fine. Micaela reasoned with herself, it’s not as if Maggie could even write yet let alone read and she had at least two years before Kindergarten and just— It would be fine.

People would never quite stop underestimating Maggie Sawyer to their own detriment.

Maggie takes the marker and sprints as fast as her small legs can carry her to the privacy of her room. She takes the warning about keeping the adults in the dark to heart wedging herself underneath her bed but not before grabbing her plush spike doll to soften the ground underneath her.

She decides to leave Petrie and Ducky in their staged snuggle atop the bed.

After settling comfortably Maggie gets to work drawing a masterpiece of a dog for her soulmate. Her tongue pokes slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates. She beams with pride when she finishes, taking no heed that the dog is mostly crude approximations of circles and a line for the tail.

Almost immediately the marks decorating Maggie’s arm start rapidly disappearing, leaving grey streaks behind like they were haphazardly rubbed away, not washed off thoroughly. New words quickly start taking their place.

 _Omg!!! Hi soulmate!!! My name’s Alex! what’s yours? I’m SO excited!! I’ve been waiting for you!_ _☺☺☺_

Maggie doesn’t know most of the words. She can make out the _hi_ and that the first letter of her soulmate’s name is the same as the second letter in her own. She does understand her soulmate asking for her name though.

Maggie can print the first three letters of her nickname just this side of legible. She almost does but then she remembers her promise to Micaela.

And a pinky promise is a pinky promise. She uses the marker to trace the letters of the words she knows instead.

Her soulmate must realize  _something_ because this time when all the words fade the skin is clean no smudges to be seen.

It takes a few agonizing minutes where Maggie fears she did something wrong but soon neatly hand-drawn lines and printed letters like something out of a school workbook appear on Maggie’s arm.  

She outlines the letters that disappear and reappear, they do this for a while until Maggie has traced over the alphabet half a dozen times.

After that Maggie’s left arm is used almost exclusively for lessons while her right arm looks much like it always had.

In the future Maggie learns that Alex is ambidextrous.

Time passes and the tracing evolves into copying and before long Maggie is writing on her own. She teaches Alex Portuguese in exchange. Intellectually it’s hardly a surprise at how quickly Alex’s commentary becomes bilingual. Although given a few years small-town Nebraska time, in retrospect it will shock the hell out of Maggie socially.  

Maggie still doesn’t _talk_ to Alex though, despite far surpassing her sister’s estimated timeframe for when she _could_. She draws a lot of pictures though and hopes they brighten Alex’s day the way Alex’s marks brighten hers.

It’s a good thing Maggie is so fond the marks because god knows there’s a lot of them. Alex is a font information, but for every piece of legible knowledge there’s just as many doodles and reminders and notations in a developing shorthand that makes sense to no one but Alex herself.

Somewhere in the early days of this flurry of informational exchange a set of handwriting emerges that doesn’t belong to either of them. Everytime Maggie teaches Alex something in Portuguese, it becomes echoed in Arabic.

Neither Alex nor Maggie register it as anything out of the ordinary, not realizing the writing doesn’t belong to anyone in their respective families. After only a few months the mysterious writing disappears entirely and doesn’t surface again. It’s existence becomes completely forgotten, a childhood memory lost to time.

As such they both appear for all intents and purposes to have inexplicably gained the ability to understand Arabic. 

Maggie’s body continues to get covered in markings, if anything the older Alex gets the worse it becomes.

Amidst the lessons, her soulmate’s childish drawings and wobbly letters eventually become diagrams and equations the complexities of which should far surpass the childlike penmanship they’re written in.

It’s a day like any other save for Maggie spending the better part of it staring at her arm in confusion. It’s littered with a series of letters that don’t spell anything and oddly placed numbers. There are some plus signs but it’s nothing like the addition she’s seen. There are arrows and weird 3-D circles on circles too.

Maggie’s used to explanations or labels in Alex’s messy scrawl  or sometimes the artistic yet precise flow she’s come to recognize as Alex’s dad. This time she finds no commentary and she’s curious.

She seeks out Micaela first like that day well over a year ago but this time Micaela scrunches up her nose and dismissively says, “How should I know, science.” before slamming the door to her room in Maggie’s face.

So she tries asking her parents about them. Her mother starts to give her the soulmate speech about two years too late but Maggie wants to know what the marks mean not what they are.

Maria stares at her arms in almost disbelief as if seeing them for the first time. Sure she’s noticed the abundance of marks covering her daughter's arms but now that she’s really _looking_ and what she’s seeing is chemical equations.

Well, she’s at a bit of a loss.

Suddenly Maggie sees the beginnings of coherent words forming.

“Oh it’s okay Ma, Alex is explaining.” It doesn’t concern Maggie too much that she only understands about half of what Alex is saying. Alex’s dad is good at teaching things simpler anyway and - yup there he is.  

Maggie turns to go, no longer needing answers but Maria grabs her arm as the second set of writing much more elaborate than the first appears, “What is that?”

Maggie tilts her head in confusion until her mother points specifically to the handwriting in question, “It’s Alex’s dad.” Maggie says like it’s the most obvious, normal thing in the world.

Maria realizes to maggie it is.

Maria wonders what kind of parent would not only allow their child to write on themselves in such a manner, but _write on their child themself_  knowing there’s another presumably child out there somewhere also being marked.

And should she do something about it? How long has this been going on? Can Maggie read all of that, she’s just barely going on _five_.

Maria realizes in that moment how focused she’s been on Marisa and nursing school at the expense of Maggie and Micaela. She vows there and then to make it up to them.

She watches Maggie studying her arm with furrowed brows and is in awe of her tiny beautiful, brilliant daughter, even as a prickle of fear skitters down the back of her neck. She prays this life won’t snuff out the light burning bright behind Maggie’s eyes.

Johnny often looks at the marks with something akin to disgust. Lectures about the impropriety of it all become commonplace but there’s bitterness in his voice that belies true conviction. Maggie catches snippets of the frequent mutterings piecing together something along the lines of ‘who the hell do they think they are’ and ‘smart alecs thinking they’re better than us working folks.’

Maggie doesn’t let it bother her. She loves the marks. Every single one. Her favorites are when her whole arms become tapestries of constellations. It doesn’t happen very often so it’s special when it does.

Maggie brings her comforter out to her yard and walks a ways from the house dragging her group of stuffed dinosaur friends behind her. She lays down under the twinkling blanket of darkness and tries to find the clusters of estrelas on her arms reflected in the sky. She matches them the best she can by the labels printed small and neat identifying each star and cluster.

Alex and Jeremiah ‘help’ her build her very first telescope out of cardboard, string, tape and magnifying glasses.

Maggie can’t help the small thrum of disappointment when she realizes she won't be able to see all the different constellations that exist from the spot in her backyard. Alex promises one day they can see them all together.

Most of all Maggie loves the stories she knows come from Jerimiah of ancient monsters, gods and kings. Of animal spirits, great hunts and the sun. Of life and loss and love and strife and hope.

Draco is her favorite constellation (dragons are almost as cool dinosaurs only not cause dinosaurs are _real_ ) Even though she’s a fan of the mythical beasts she still thinks it’s neat how draco was slain by Athenea and thrown into space.

Ursa Major and Minor are a close second. More than one culture long ago looked to the sky and imagined bears in that grouping stars. Maggie has trouble seeing it. She could always find the big dipper easier than the entirety of the ‘larger bear’ and never could quite make sense of the little dipper being envisioned as a baby bear with an unusually long tail.

Still at least the myths are cool, what Maggie really likes though more than the elusive bears or the constellations themselves is Polaris, the North Star.

Maggie finds comfort in the knowledge that if you know what you're looking for you can never be truly lost.

She sits on the grass under a moonless sky blanketed with stars feeling for a moment like she exists alone in the universe. Her skin tingles or maybe it’s psychosomatic either way when she glances down there’s new writing and Maggie is filled with a sense of something primal and unfathomable.

There's a perception of ancient wisdom written in the stars. Maggie looks at Polaris and feels the weight of a hundred thousand timeworn journeys.

There’s a pull, an energy that’s almost magic wrapped up in the collective experiences of so many travelers across the ages looking to a fixed point for guidance.

She finds out some years later in a middle of the night conversation with Alex that in 3000 BCE a faint star called Thuban, located in her self-proclaimed favorite constellation Draco, was the North Star.  

Maggie’s response is to shake her head. It seemed even without knowing it Maggie had always been drawn to that which would help her determine finding her own way.

Alex writes facts and scientific designations in between the stories that Maggie finds out are always chimed in from her mom, Eliza. “We should be scientists first, Jeremiah.” is apparently a thing she often says.

Maggie likes them _almost_ as much as the stories but only because of the look the adults get on their faces when she says things like ‘stars don’t actually twinkle, it’s turb’lence in Earth's atmosphere deflecting the light that reaches our eyes’ or ‘nuc’lear fusion is why stars radiate energy.’

There are other constellations that appear on her skin even more rarely than the others. Ones that she can never find no matter how many times she combs through astronomy books in her life.  

She never gets any explanations for these. It’ll be years before she pieces together why.

 

          **************************

 

When Maggie finds out she gets to start school she’s more than excited even though there are hardly enough kids to constitute a class. Maggie’s dreams are dashed pretty quickly when she realizes Pre-K is practically like daycare. Sure she knew it was _pre_ school still there was school in the word.

Maggie mopes around the house a lot instead of playing outside after ‘school’. She wants to _learn_ not sing-songs and play duck, duck, goose. A game mind you Maggie has tried to point out doesn’t really work very well with only six people including the teachers.

They don’t even get to go outside to play. Maggie concedes at least if she got to run around outside without being told exactly what she can and cannot do she might tolerate it a bit more but she’s stuck watching longingly as the older kids play kickball through the window.

Her gloomy attitude plays a large part in her ability to convince her mom to take her to see Jurassic Park for her fifth birthday. Maggie leaves the theater with even stronger affinity for dinosaurs than before, a particular attachment to Tyrannosaurus Rex and a crush on Laura Dern, though she won’t realize that last one for what it is until much later.

Micaela leaves the theater with nightmares about velociraptors for months.

Maggie tries to share her newfound knowledge of dinosaurs with her classmates. It doesn’t go over all that well, maybe she should have tried roaring less.

It becomes readily apparent that despite Maggie narrowly missing the age cutoff for the start of the school year she does not belong in pre-K.

Less than a month into said school year a beaming Maggie starts her first day of Kindergarten. There are only nine other kids in her class and Maggie’s the only one who can already read and write fluently, let alone in three languages.

There’s talk of placing her straight into first, maybe even second grade especially after they realize she has quite a bit more arithmetic and science knowledge rattling around her brain as well.

Maggie misses the snide ‘hmm all thanks to her soulmate I suppose’. Maria does not. 

Grade-skipping as opposed to placing her in the class she belonged in any way barring bureaucracy is where her father puts his foot down though. By the time anything is sorted it’s almost Christmas and it makes the most sense for Maggie to just stay where she is for the time being.

By spring Maggie has already read all of the books in the small class library and spends a lot of time drawing. Jeremiah jokes that she got all his artistic talent because while technical diagrams are well within Alex’s abilities the more creative aspect of art is not where her talents lie.

Maggie’s bored one day, casually doodling the jungles of Jurassic Park on her forearm. Alex is occasionally jotting down fun facts about Jurassic era fauna when Jeremiah's familiar handwriting appears.

_Nice to see someone in the family will carry on my artistic legacy._

It’s the first comment (but not the last) of it’s kind and Maggie cries though she can’t put why into words.

 

_*************************_

 

The weather turns warmer and they get to have recess outside again. Maggie likes to climb so she makes a beeline for the jungle gym. She goes to patiently wait her turn but she’s shoved out of line and into the dirt by some blonde girl from another class.  

“You can’t play here you’re _dirty_.”

Maggie blinks, stunned more than anything and confused. There isn’t too much dirt on her from the fall, nothing she can’t brush off and that doesn’t make sense anyway because she was _pushed_ into the dirt.

And besides her mom makes her take a bath every day, Maggie indignantly says as much.

“You’re _skin_ is dirty.”

“My soulmate mar— ”

“I didn’t mean your marks.” Patricia, maybe that was her name Maggie thought, sneered, “although with the amount of _stains_ on you, your soulmate is probably _actually_ dirty too.”

“Hey now wa—” Her sister spots what’s going down from across the playground and hurries over to Maggie. Micaela ushers her away before Maggie can do anything with the tiny fists she’d unconsciously balled at her sides as drew herself up to her full albeit unimpressive height.

“Hey, small fry you alright?” Micaela asks.

“Yeah, I guess but what did she mean? I’m not dirty. I wash up all the time and my soulmate marks don’t have anything to do with being clean. And why’d she call ‘em stains?”

Micaela sucked in a breath, she never had this problem herself. Brad was never flashy with his marks and she favored the northern Italian in their dad her light brown hair gaining natural blonde streaks in the sun that really brought out the green in her hazel eyes. Her fairer skin tanned deep bronze over summer break but always faded by December.

Staring down at her perplexed little sister who was the spitting image of their Vovo with her dark brown hair and darker eyes and skin that didn’t pale dramatically in the winter months. Micaela had no idea what she was supposed to say.

“She was just being mean, Mags. People don’t always like different.”

“And I’m…... different?”

“Um……I mean uh sh— .”

“And that’s bad?”

“No, no, no ,no. Okay no listen, being different, being _you,_ is  _never_ a bad thing. Okay, it’s the best thing you can be but some people especially around here might treat you badly for it. And that’s because they’re **wrong.**  Not you okay. Some people don’t understand the different and so they want to try and make it go away.”

“Three-Horns never play with long necks.” Maggie mutters. Viscerally connecting with the main interpersonal conflict of her favorite cartoon dinosaurs. Now she knows how Littlefoot must’ve felt when Cera refused to play or travel with him ‘cause he was different.

She wished she could give her stuffed Littlefoot a hug right about now. They could both use it.

Well, he didn’t give up and neither. would. she.

A few weeks later they take a class trip to the library in Wymore to get their own library cards and Maggie is in awe of all the books.

They even have a small section devoted to paleontology. Maggie’s seen _The Land Before Time_ like a million times,  likes it even more than _The Little Mermaid_ which is saying something. She even managed to see Jurassic Park two more times before it left theaters. So finding even a handful of books on actual dinosaurs, well Maggie feels a little overwhelmed.

In a good way. It helps ease the defeat she feels after trying so hard to befriend the other kids on the playground without success. Maggie starts spending a lot more time in the library when the taste of dirt gets to be too much.

The ‘science stuff’ on her arms is getting more advanced and the explanations less illuminating so she exerts a lot more effort in trying to decipher it. Hours often pass while she pours over books and she tells herself it’s exactly where she wants to be even if sometimes the call of her giggling peers as they horse around aches.

She’s sitting underneath a tree, markers scattered around her enjoying the sunshine and working on a realistic portrait of Rexy (discovering Jurassic Park had been based off a book had made Maggie’s entire week).

She’s adding a little more detail to the eye when—

_Did you know T-Rexes actually had feathers?_

And that’s where Maggie draws the line.

Whatever indefinable something that kept Maggie from explicitly writing back. Whatever deep seeded remnants of a pinky promise that had her limiting their interactions to information trades and wordless pictures even though her sister did say dinosaurs were a safe topic, just snaps.  

_T-REXES DO NOT HAVE FEATHERS!!!_

_They did it’s actually really interesting bec—_ but Maggie just draws a giant _NO_ covering the letters.

_But—_

_NO—_

_I’m just saying—_

_NOPE that’s lame stop._

_Well fine then if I knew facts about Tyrannosaurus Rex skin coverings would get you to talk to me maybe I would have done it sooner xD_

_Sorry I—_

_Hey, no I was totally kidding. So how’s your day going?_

And just like that Maggie’s talking to her soulmate as if she’d been doing it all her life. It feels like when Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie, Spike and Cera the finally found the great valley.

Maggie would have thought after years of Alex babbling on her skin there wasn’t anything she didn’t know about her soulmate (barring the whole what Alex looks like or where she lives or her birthday or that ya know she’s a girl) but Maggie learns something new everyday.

She already knows Alex wants to be a pro-surfer but only just finds out she’s terrified of jellyfish. Maggie knows Alex’s mom wants her to be a doctor and a scientist but Maggie is the first person Alex tells when she wins her first surfing competition.

She knows Alex’s favorite scent is her dad’s aftershave mixed with the sea air but learns that Alex’s favorite place to read is curled up next to her mom while she works on her doctorate.

Of course, Alex needs to play catch up since she knows next to nothing about Maggie except that she speaks Portuguese and has a fondness for dinosaurs.

Alex learns that Maggie’s favorite color is orange but that her favorite shirt is a tie-dyed one bearing the Jurassic Park logo and Maggie would wear it every day if her mom let her.

She learns that Maggie’s favorite food is feijoada the way her Vovó makes it but she’d rather eat grilled cheese any day because the best talks with her mom always happen when Maria’s making the sandwiches for her and her sisters.

Maggie tells Alex about her favorite spot in the library, a hidden corner with a faded cushion tucked behind one of the bookcases long since forgotten and how her ma promised she could learn to ride horses this summer.

Alex learns about Maggie’s sisters and her parents and her grandparents on her dad’s side who are still alive but she’s never met, about her avô who died before she was born and her Vovó that lives with them and her numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins scattered everywhere.

Maggie complains about how Micaela likes to hide Maggie’s Ducky stuffed animal on high shelves when they’re fighting which upsets Maggie especially because “You can’t separate Ducky from Pitre they’re best friends!”

What Alex doesn’t learn somehow is her soulmate’s name, so maybe based on that anecdote and the information that her soulmate is tiny even for ‘his’ age she starts referring to ‘him’ as Ducky.

The rest of the school year passes in a blur but Maggie knows she’s spoken to Alex every day.

Summer vacation begins and they go on their separate adventures but always remain in sync.

Maybe they aren’t together in the strictest sense of the word but they swear that when Alex surfs Maggie can taste the salt air hundred of miles from the nearest coast and when Maggie climbs trees Alex can feel the rough bark even as she’s paddling through water.

Maria makes good on her promise for Maggie to learn how to ride horses and Alex feels the wind whipping through her hair in the still of her bedroom. Alex accidently singes off her eyebrows in an experiment gone wrong and Maggie has the smell of burnt hair stuck in her nostrils for weeks.

There’s never something to write with out of reach and Maggie swears sometimes she can feel Alex laugh.

School starts again and Maggie still struggles to make friends but she feels lighter just the same. It has everything to do with the _good luck on your first day back Ducky <3 _written on her palm.  

 

     ************************

 

No one comes to her sixth birthday party not that Maggie expected they would. Her mom looks devastated but Maggie wasn’t really expecting anyone to show up anyway so hey more Little Mermaid cake for her.

Besides she has Alex because maybe in her burst of excitement about her awesome Disney cake and the Jurassic Park decorations Maggie accidently lets the personal detail that is her birthdate slip.  

Alex already knows by now how none of the kids would play with her. Has offered to come beat up Patricia, in particular, who hasn’t stopped picking on Maggie but she still seems almost as devastated as Maggie’s mom when Maggie mentions how she’s celebrating with just her family.

Alex gets her dad to draw an epic dinosaur mural on their arms featuring both the cast of _The Land Before Time_ in party hats and some of the more realistic dinos from _Jurassic Park_ (also in decked out in party hats) surrounded by balloons and streamers.

Alex adds Maggie’s classmates being eaten, stepped on and in the case of Patricia mauled to the absolute horror of Maggie’s parents and the delight of Maggie herself.

“Boys will be boys I suppose.” her father blusters as he leaves the room. Maggie scowls without conscious thought.

It’s the best birthday Maggie has for quite awhile.

And then Maggie’s dad is gone before Thanksgiving rolls around.

He’s not injured or missing or dead. He’s just gone, having run off with some woman that he met down at the bar who was just passing through.

And Maggie’s world is shattered.

Her parents were _soulmates_ and it doesn’t compute because a soulmate is the one person who’s always there for you but her dad is _gone._ He _chose_ to go and Maggie doesn’t _understand_.

A day goes by. 

And another. 

Maggie’s mom has locked herself in her room.

Maggie can’t bear to look at her arms.

_Hey how was your day?_

_Ducky?_

_Everything okay?_

_Ducky. Ducky? Hello?_

_Now I’m getting kind of worried are you alright?_

_Duuuuuuckkkkkkyyyyyyyyyyyy_

_I'm more than just kind of worried_

_Ducky seriously what's going on? you're freaking me out_

_Ducky I swear on Rexy! Ducky?!_

_Ducky. Please._

Three days pass before Maria emerges, spine straight, shoulders squared but her eyes barely alive

Maggie’s arms are covered in messages in varying degrees of concern bordering on panic but Maggie _can’t._

She starts wearing long sleeves.

Maria needs to start working more shifts at the hospital but she carves out a few hours every Sunday solely devoted to spending time with her girls. They slowly start adjusting to the reality that their husband, their father is gone of his own free will and isn’t coming back.

Christmas is rough and Maggie cries harder than she ever has when she notices a T-Rex in a Santa hat appear on her arm. The pleas are fewer now but still appear daily. At least Maggie thinks they do. She still makes every effort not to _look_.

It’s killing her but the fact that the marks are still there at all is killing her more. They don’t mean anything after all, if they did her dad would still be around.

Despite the crazy hours Maria works as a nurse in the next town over, Maggie and her sisters have never been closer to their mom.

The weather slowly begins to warm again as winter fades but Maggie continues to wear long sleeves.

All of the time.  

She adds an old pair of gloves with the fingers cut off when she keeps glancing down at her hands to see ink peeking out from underneath the sleeves.

Maggie still can’t bear looking at the marks on her arms. Sometimes she thinks feels phantom tears roll down her cheeks but she does her very best to convince herself she doesn’t care. It only works when she finally to moves past the grief and embraces that the phantom sensations are just that.

Phantom. As in a figment of the imagination as in not real just like soulmates.

Some late-night conspiracy theorist says soulmates are just some meaningless fluke of nature and Maggie believes it.

Without the interference of her dad, Maggie skips second grade altogether going straight from first to third.

If she thought things were bad before she was sorely mistaken because now it’s not just Patricia in her face and everyone else mostly avoiding her. Not just her skin tone or the soul marks. She’d be the smallest in her second-grade class but in third _—_

It doesn’t help that she’s smarter than them all or that her dad abandoned his family, his soulmate.

Maggie is bouncing a rubber ball off the side of the school building, having given up on reading at recess after a fourth book became a casualty of schoolyard bullies. Which is when Patricia deigns to make her presence known. They share a class now and Maggie just wishes the girl would disappear from her life.

That’s not the kind of luck Maggie has been blessed with and this time when Patricia shoves her there’s no dirt to break her fall. The asphalt scrapes her elbows, stinging where Maggie clumsily tried to catch herself but not nearly as much as the words Patricia spits, “Hey spic, why didn’t your daddy take you with him. He realize you weren’t his kid or something?”

Maggie’s had many talks with her mom since that first encounter where she became conscious of ‘being different’. They talked about hate in the world and in their town. They talked about the words, the slurs their own form of violence but didn't gloss over the physical kind. Spoke about how adults might not always interfere and how sometimes they may even be dangerous themselves.

Maggie determined she can only really rely on herself.

They talk about Maggie staying safe and how she should always try to avoid escalating the situation.  

“He hate having a dirty bastard so much he left his soulmate ‘cause of you?”

Maggie breaks Patricia’s nose. The two-day suspension is well worth it in her opinion.

The black eye and broken ribs from Patricia's brothers less so.

It’s more or less open season after that but Maggie refuses to go down without a fight. They chase her if she runs so she stands her ground.

She takes a lot of hits at first but gets decent enough at fighting. It’s hard not to under the severity of the circumstances. Its trial by fire and Maggie is phoenix born of the flames.

The only reason Alex ends up knowing Ducky’s still alive is the smears of dried blood, Maggie doesn’t always manage to wipe away quickly enough.

The first time Maggie comes home bleeding Maria doesn’t know what to do _._ She can treat the wounds certainly, but she wants to tear the world apart at the seams. No mother should have to bind the ribs of their child after a day at school.

The administration has nothing to say of course, ‘where’s your proof it happened on school property’ and ‘kids will be kids.’ She see’s the barely concealed disdain in their eyes for what it is.

Maria wants them to burn.

Telling Maggie not to fight back may very well get her killed at this point and Maria feels hopeless. All she can do besides pray is clean Maggie up day after day whispering how much she loves her, how sorry she is but also how proud.

She needs to bring home a fully stocked E.R. supply pack after Maggie’s exploits exhaust the basic first aid kit she keeps under the sink. Maria starts picking up extra shifts trying in vain to save enough money to move them out of Blue Springs.

Maggie’s getting good at ignoring the soulmate marks but eventually she notices on days where she isn’t fast enough to wipe off the blood, she acquires brightly colored ‘band-aids’.

After a bloody nose that just wouldn’t clot for some reason and more blood than she could conceivably keep from streaking down her face she finds a huge T-Rex in boxing gloves with a speech bubble that says,

_Chin up, kiddo._

Big block letters appear next to the creature.

 _We’re here if you ever need anything_.

Those communications hurt the worst because she recognizes Jeremiah's work and Maggie struggles to understand how much he seems to care about her.  She isn’t his kid but he’s always treated her like family and she just can’t make sense of it anymore.

He _shouldn’t_ because how can they be family when all that connects them is a meaningless fluke of nature. Why would someone else’s father want her when her own….

Maggie redoubles her effort to avoid the marks altogether. It’s much easier said than done all things considered. She’s sure people aren’t even conscious of how often they catch sight of their own skin.

She makes a good go if it though, with body covering clothing and lightning quick showers staring resolutely at the wall. Sometimes she can even go weeks without registering anything her soulmate writes.

_“Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.”_

 It isn’t always that easy though. Alex doesn’t stop writing.

_"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”_

The pleas dwindle down to nothing. The only indication that anything is amiss is the fairly new band-aid tradition and occasional reminder that she has the option for help should she need it.

_“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”_

It’s much like it was before they spoke. Maggie silent while Alex uses their skin as if she were unaware of paper’s existence. Eventually, Maggie begins noticing quotes when her gaze accidentally strays.

_“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”_

She gets curious when it appears that there’s an obviously placed quote, amid the scribbled shorthand and calculations indicative of Alex’s experimentation, every time she becomes cognizant the marks, no matter how much time has passed.

_“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”_

She eventually caves to her inquisitive nature and discovers they’re all quotes from Sun Tzu. If the librarian is surprised by an eight year old checking out _The Art of War_ she doesn’t show it. In truth the woman stopped batting an eye at anything Maggie Sawyer walked out of the library with ages ago. Even though she’s noticed the girl coming around less and less.

_"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”_

Maggie isn’t a fan.

As far as she’s concerned it contains neither useful nor practical information at this juncture in her life.  

He’s a brilliant strategist to be sure but Maggie isn’t fighting a war so much as surviving.

She has no idea just how many of these ‘war strategies’ she unconsciously internalizes. Especially since they typically fail to come out in physical altercations.

Her interpersonal relationships are another matter entirely.

Besides, there’s something to be said for the thrill of the fight when the adrenaline is pumping and the only thing she can control is her own body.

Time passes as it does and Maggie gets better than just good at fighting. She’s tiny but scrappy and not at all afraid to fight dirty.

And maybe the art of war manifests itself in a little more than just the personal if the way she starts choosing her battles more wisely is any indication.

She never does stop charging head first into danger though, heedless of the possible outcomes.

By the time fourth grade begins most people think twice before messing with Maggie.

So when the school offers her the opportunity to skip another grade she balks. It seemed reducing her time in the library and getting into regular brawls a were not enough to overshadow her academic aptitude.

Maggie finds it weird honestly, she doesn’t feel particularly smart. She just likes to read and she gets good grades but she doesn’t feel like she has ‘a brilliant mind’. Maybe the curriculum isn’t all that challenging to her but she’s not about to paint another target on her back when she can always teach herself things.

Hell, she’s pretty sure Alex is a literal genius. Her soulmate could be in high school already if Jeremiah hadn’t insisted on a somewhat regular childhood. Alex's parents let her learn whatever she wants outside of school even allowing her to take some college classes with them but she hasn’t actually skipped any grades.

Maggie may not believe in soulmates anymore and she’d never admit it out loud but it’s nice to have that knowledge about another person to draw some strength from.

Maggie gets her mom to convince the school board that she’s is fine exactly where she is.

She starts filling in some wrong answers on exams for good measure.

Meanwhile, it seems everyone around her is approaching an age where soulmates are becoming a big deal. She distantly recalls Micaela being around this age the first time Brad reached out and she was allowed to reciprocate.

Micaela may have been a bit younger actually but regardless it seemed Maggie was witnessing the turning point of social acceptability. To a point, Maggie rarely if ever sees skin with the sort of inked patchwork she herself is accustomed to bearing.

She may cover up for her own reasons these days but she’s learned it’s not uncommon particularly where she lives for parents to force children with more _eccentric_ soulmates to hide their marks.

Maggie gains a brief moment of notoriety. The abundance of her marks since early childhood common knowledge and her concealment of them _after_ the fact apparently suspicious.

It passes quickly enough.

Maggie finds herself not really getting all the fuss. A bit ironic considering the elated reverence she once held for the very concept of soulmates, for her soulmate. It still hurts if she thinks too much about the warm fuzzies experienced in her youthful naivete. And yet as long as the focus is on the present catching sight of the marks doesn’t gut her the way it used to anymore.

She just can’t see herself spending the rest of her life with some boy because fate said so. Even if that boy was Alex.

Truth be told Maggie is getting straight up sick of hearing about soulmates. Micaela won’t stop gushing about Brad unable to contain her excitement. They have plans this summer to meet for the first time at his grandparent's ranch in Montana.  

Micaela’s mentioned at least eight different possible wedding venues and what she wants to name their kids and it’s all Maggie can do not to scream at her to get a grip she’s barely even started high school.

Micaela tries to coax Maggie into the wedding planning spirit but Maggie deftly dodges the subject. The thought of marrying some guy, of being his _wife_ makes her stomach churn unpleasantly.

Maggie chalks it up to her disillusionment with soulmates as a whole.

Her mom still worries about her even though she’s getting into less fights. Less, not none because kids are still assholes. And even if they spend less time being assholes directly to her, Maggie doesn’t think twice before charging into situations where other kids are getting bullied.

That summer with Micaela’s trip and Marisa needing glasses they don’t have the money for Maggie to keep up with riding. It’s been a few years though and the owners are fond of Maggie so she strikes a deal to exchange labor for the chance to ride.

Maggie finds solace in the hard work. Something the about the physical labor is grounding. It’s like that moment in fight when a strike hits its mark only instead of adrenaline there’s only calm.

She likes the ache in her developing muscles after days spent mucking the stalls. The swell of pride in helping to keep the tack well-maintained.

She wears a lot of flannel and button-ups over her tank-tops, hiding the marks out of habit but she slowly grows comfortable enough to tie them around her waist in the heat.

Maggie hates most of the occupants in this small town but the Johnsons are good people. Their oldest is back from college in Metropolis for the summer. Taylor turns into the big brother Maggie never knew she wanted. He regales her with tales of life in the big city a world away from bumfuck Nebraska. An English lit major he doesn’t talk down to Maggie when they discuss books and recommends based on gauged interest not supposed reading level.

Taylor teaches her how to shoot. They spend afternoons trying to answer questions on famous authors, characters, and quotes before the other can shoot a clay pigeon out of the sky.  

And of course, there’s the horses. Maggie loves the horses, animals in general tend to have an intrinsic sense for what kind a person someone is but horses they have some of the best instincts that Maggie’s seen. She appreciates that about them.

Maggie enjoys the meditative nature of grooming, of building a connection with the horse. Maggie can speak more than one language but her favorite by far is body language. Horse not human. The latter is useful but there’s no joy in it.

There’s something pure Maggie thinks about a genuine bond between a horse and person when time is taken to get to know the steed

Maggie has yet to find something that compares to the adrenaline high of a horse at full gallop or the sense of pride at a successful jump.

Riding a horse that trusts you as much as you trust them is the closest to freedom Maggie’s ever felt.

She’s wanted to get out of this town for as long as she could remember but maybe in another life….

She wouldn’t have much minded making a living as a ranch hand or a horse trainer. Yea, maybe in another life just not this one.

It’s easily the most rewarding way she’s spent a summer.

 

                                                 

*************************** 

 

Another school year arrives where nothing much changes in Blue Springs and Maggie falls into a routine keeping her head down and her fists up. She never reads in public anymore and gets good enough grades to ensure she gets the fuck out of this town but not enough to draw attention.

She spends most of her free time in the stables, if she’s not actively dealing with the horses she can often be found up in the hayloft with a book.

In sixth grade, she caves and joins the soccer team when she realizes she should have some more calculable extracurriculars for her eventual college applications.

It’s an unseasonably cold fall and Maggie is huddled in a hot bath after spending nearly two hours playing into overtime in the freezing rain.  The last thing she expected was some grand life revelation. Once again becoming aware of yet another way she was _different_ .

Maggie stretches her legs out as the warmth finally start seeping into her bones which is how she notices the ink sprawling the expanse of her thighs.  While their arms often look like the whiteboard of some kooky science fiction professor, Alex still not quite grasping the use of say a diary has a tendency to...emote on their upper legs.

Maggie registers the actual wording mid-rant.

_‘You need to start behaving like the young lady that you are Alexandra.’ I mean can you believe her wanting me to wear that monstrosity of a dress she picked out is bad enough but now she’s getting on my case about the pre-dawn surfing like_

The words continue scrolling across her leg. Alex getting well and truly into the tirade as she’s want to do on occasion but Maggie is very much frozen on lady, on dress, on Alexandra.

Alex.is.short.for.Alexandra. Alexandra who is Maggie’s soulmate. Alexandra who is a girl. Alexandra who is Maggie’s girl soulmate.

Maggie bolts upright not noticing the water sloshing out of the sides of the tub as she feels something undefinable click into place down in her very soul.

She laughs because it’s so _obvious_ and yeah okay maybe she’s always known on some level but now she _knows_ , like it was just sitting there in a darkened corner of the room and someone suddenly shined a spotlight on it.

“Maggie, honey are you alright?” Maria’s voice cuts through the kaleidoscope of Maggie’s thoughts. Maggie stumbles out of the bath struggling to pull clothes on over her still wet body as she stumbles over to the door.

Maria staggers back slightly as Maggie collapses in a heap onto her mother bringing them both to the floor as tears begin to dripping down her cheeks.

“Maggie what on earth?” Maria’s startled countenance is rapidly melting back into concern.

“I’m...girls..I’m gay. Meu Deus I’m gay.” Maggie says it mostly to herself sorting through the rush of memories and emotions and revelation. It’s odd because the first time she’s consciously thinks it, let alone says it but at the same time it truly does feel like she’s always known. And it just feels so, so right. The quiet tears turn to sobs of relief and Maria can only hold her daughter tightly to her chest.

“Oh, my baby.” her heart breaks ever so slightly at how much more difficult Maggie’s life would get before it got any better. There would be adversity enough for Maggie to face in her life, and it doesn’t matter what her own mother might say or the town, Maria would not let it start here.  So she rocks her gently and strokes her hair, whispering words of encouragement, of safety, of love.

Maggie isn’t upset but the tears keep coming.

Overwhelmed. She thinks is probably the most accurate. So many things are sliding into focus. Dinosaurs aside, her Jurassic Park obsession certainly made a lot more sense. She makes a mental note for a rewatch to appreciate the... cinematic masterpiece at some point soon.

The soulmate aspect is what’s really getting to her. Maggie almost can’t believe it had just simply never occurred to her. True those around her had always just assumed and referred to her soulmate as a boy. All the movies she'd ever seen followed the basic formula of boy meets girl. No one ever questioned what Alex might in fact be short for. And Maggie herself had chalked up so many of those odd feelings as objecting to a soulmate in and of itself.

Maggie’s actually pretty happy about it.

It’s like a weight she could never see but always felt had been lifted. It isn’t about Alex or a soulmate, Maggie just doesn’t like guys. She didn’t know how important putting a word to it could be for her.  And maybe Maggie still vehemently opposes the idea of soulmates but it is kind of nice for the meaningless fluke of nature to validate her like this, she figures.

Maggie feels the tears slow and feels her mom press a kiss to the top of her head, “Maybe we just keep this between us for now, filhinha ”.  

Maggie doesn’t feel ashamed or hurt by her mother’s suggestion because she can’t help but agree.

 

  *************************

 

It’s like deja-vu in Blue Springs as Maggie makes her way through yet another school year where nothing changes, until halfway through suddenly it does.

Maggie’s on auto-pilot as she makes her way through the school yard which is why it’s particularly jarring when her body stops short before her brain can catch-up. Because standing between the swingset and the side of the building is someone new.

It’s Blue Springs, everyone knows everyone else and Maggie’s mind can’t comprehend the appearance of this girl because she’s not just new. She’s middle of a school year, hasn’t been seen around town or the only grocery store in a forty mile radius new.

Maggie almost thinks she’s imagined her at first, partially hidden by the hulking forms belonging to three of her least favorite eighth graders.

Maggie hadn’t though because there she stands defiant and tiny. Seriously, the girl is really tiny almost impossibly so to Maggie who’s still easily the smallest in her class as well as the few below her.

Maggie immediately changes course because these boys especially are trouble.

“Problem gentleman?” The new girl breaks off her staring contest with the ring leader, Jake at the sound of Maggie’s voice and Maggie feels her stomach swoop.

“Beat it UPS, we were just welcoming the fresh meat and making sure she pays the entrance fee.”

“Well I can assure that won’t be happening.” the girl chimes in from behind.

Maggie sees jake shift, he has no problem ‘putting a girl in her place’ and Maggie has gotten into frequent scuffles with him over the years. She knows all his tells so she lashes out first. She gets him down for the count but his friends are quick to jump in the fray.

New girl is too and by the time the scrabble draws too much attention the boys are limping away without trying to appear as if that’s the case and Maggie is flat on her back.

New girl leans into Maggie’s line of sight and Maggie finds herself lost in the greenest eyes she’s ever seen.

“I can handle myself you know.” The girl’s hands are planted firmly on her hips as Maggie picks herself up off the ground.

"Right, sorry I’ll just _—_ ”  Maggie makes a move to go, she hadn’t actually thought this far ahead just knew she needed to step in. She doesn’t know why the rejection stings she should be used to it by now.

So she’s shocked when new girl’s hand darts out softly catching her wrist preventing her from leaving.

“I was just letting you know, didn’t want that half an inch of height you got on me going to your head. Didn’t mean for you to leave.”

Maggie doesn’t realize she zoned out staring blankly at the hand still loosely gripping her wrist.

“I’m Lucy. Lucy Lane.” Maggie’s a little surprised by the hand Lucy extends and the firm shake though she returns the gesture in kind.

“Maggie Sawyer.”

“Cool, wanna show me around Maggie Sawyer?”

“Uhm, you probably don’t want me to do that I’m not exactly popular around here.” In fact Maggie can’t help but snort at the understatement. “Wouldn’t wanna make you a social pariah on your very first day.”

“Please I’ve had first days in like nine different schools already in my life and I’m sure I’ll rack up a few more before I graduate. I’m not interested in whatever those neanderthals have deemed popular. Worth my time they are not.”  

“And you think I am?” It was a mirage Maggie decided. She finally took a too hard a blow to the head and her swelling brain produced an angel to guide her into the light.

“Sure seems that way. So slugger what do y’all do for fun around here?”

“In Blue Springs? Man, you are new.” Maggie doesn’t know what comes over her then. She never misses school not even when she’s sick if she can help it. And intentionally skipping? Please.

There’s no way she’ll get away with it either, there are seven other kids in her class possibly eight now depending on Lucy. Nobody’s business stays their own for long either but...

Okay Maggie knows exactly what makes her do it. Lucy wears a wicked smirk as well as she wears her tight black ripped jeans and Maggie finds herself wanting to make an impression on this girl.

“How do you feel about getting out of here?” Maggie tilts her head and smiles her most charming smile, the one that makes her dimples really pop. Lucy quirks an eyebrow clearly surprised but pleased if the way she intertwines their fingers and tells Maggie to lead the way is ay indication.  

Maggie takes her to the stables. She gives her as full a tour as she can without alerting anyone to their presence. Maggie is introducing her to some of the horses when the stable manager catches them.

“You I don’t know and you missy ought to be in school.”  Curtis' frown is lost underneath his bushy mustache but Maggie isn’t cowed by the expression or the burly arms folded across his chest.

Maggie looks up with her best pleading face, “It’s Lucy’s first day, Jake and his boys were giving her trouble.”  Curtis can see the bruise starting to form under Maggie’s jaw and the scrape on the side of Lucy’s neck. He may not know this Lucy but Maggie is a good kid.

He lets them go with gruff, “I don’t know nothin’.” and turns back the way he came.

With that obstacle unintentionally out of the way, Maggie gets an idea. She wasn’t sure she could get Draco out of the stables without anyone noticing but she takes Curtis' willful ignorance as a sign.

She leads her favorite horse, the one she helped birth (well she raised the alarm at any rate) and got to name out of the stall.

Maggie saddles up then mounts the horse in a fluid movement born from years of experience.

She reaches a hand down to Lucy staring into her eyes as she asks, “Do you trust me?”

Lucy stares at Maggie just a little too hard and Maggie feels it all the way down to her toes,

“Sure Aladdin, I trust you. Just be warned if you’re taking me out to a field to murder me I will fight back.”

“Noted.” Maggie laughs, effortlessly tugging Lucy up behind her on Draco.

The scenery passes in blur as Maggie urges the horse forward, lost in cold bite of the air and Lucy’s warm hands wrapped tightly around her waist.

They don’t speak much but it’s not at all strained. Maggie had no idea silence could feel this comfortable. At some point they began to meander and Maggie’s content to stay that way letting Draco lead until the horse starts to protest the cold and Maggie directs them back to the stables.

“So that’s what you do for fun around here then?” Lucy’s smile is a little softer and Maggie feels the boost in confidence at the thought that she was responsible for it.

“Nah, that’s how I stay sane. The fun starts after dark.” Maggie misses the eyebrow Lucy hikes up, “but we’ve got some time yet, care for an actual tour.”

“Won’t it be suspicious if school hasn’t quite let out yet?”

“Not where we’re going Lane, try and keep up.”

Maggie pulls them through yards, ducking around houses and sprinting across streets. She shares tidbits and anecdotes about certain people inspired by the places they pass.

A screen door opens and Maggie pulls Lucy behind a car.

Lucy’s amused, she doesn’t quite have the heart to tell Maggie just how conspicuous they’re being. Her father would cringe at her participation in such shoddy infiltration but Lucy is finding Maggie’s attempt at being sneaky too cute to care.

They stop short at the base of a water tower, and when had Maggie started holding her hand again? It’s gone almost as quickly as Lucy had registered it, Maggie swinging herself up onto the side of the tower.

“Hope you can climb Lane.”

Lucy doesn’t bristle at the implied challenge they way history suggests she would but she brushes the lack of reaction off and hauls herself up, tracing Maggie’s path.

They reach the top and it’s not like Lucy has a long list of experiences with water towers to compare it to but it seems higher than she expected.

Maggie plops down right at the edge feet dangling over the side apparently unconcerned with the distance separating her from the ground below.

Lucy joins her with a bit more grace and suddenly Maggie is gesturing and Lucy is almost afraid she’s going to topple right off the tower.

Maggie identifies the school from their aerial view and the best trees to climb when someone is chasing you. Not too far is a shed that Maggie makes her promise to

Not too far is a shed that Maggie makes her promise to never _ever_ go near and Lucy hasn’t spent her life so far learning diplomacy and warfare to not _know_ what the carefully concealed torment in Maggie’s eyes probably means. Lucy feels a hot flash of rage, she wants whoever put that look on her new friend’s face to _pay_.

More than that Lucy wants to be the one who collects. With some effort she shakes herself out of thoughts of street justice bringing her focus back to Maggie.

Maggie points out her own house and the ones of the other seven kids in their class as well as the teacher’s and the principal’s.

“That one there is Jake’s if you fancy revenge and think you can keep from getting caught.” Lucy files that piece of information away for future use.

There’s the cemetery and the fire department, the tiny little shack that is actually Town Hall. The police department is technically in the next town over in Wymore along with the library and the nearest grocery store is in Beatrice.

“The remains of the dam and hydroelectric power plant are kind of cool too. We could check ‘em out sometime if you want. And that Lucy Lane is essentially all of Blue Springs, Nebraska. Home, Sweet, Hell Hole.

Basically, it confirms what Lucy had assumed the second her mother told her they were moving in with her aunt because her father had to do a lot of traveling around U.S. bases for highly classified business. It’s the first time Lucy can remember staying in the states for any extended period of time and it just had to be in bumblefuck, nowhere.

“Of fucking course it is.” Lucy is able to pick out her aunt’s house from up here, her mind unconsciously mapping the lay of the land committing it to memory. She points it out to Maggie and gives her the cliff notes version of how she ended up here which more or less amounted to army brat.

School is well and truly out by the time they descend and make their way over to Maggie’s house.

Maggie lets them in gesturing for Lucy to keep quiet as she starts rummaging around in the kitchen, pulling out a few random items and handing them off to Lucy.

The next stop is the garage and Lucy watches as Maggie drops to the floor and crawls underneath a work table and out of sight. She re-emerges a few minutes later with a box filled with more miscellaneous items. She holds it out for Lucy to drop the items in before handing her the entire thing.

“Wait are you planning on making explosives?” Lucy can’t help but ask, studying the items in her arms and drawing her own conclusions. Maggie grabs a blanket off a shelf and grabs a few more things Lucy doesn’t get a chance to identify before she’s ushered out.

“Technically speaking? Kind of,  c’mon.”

Maggie drags her across the street and a yard and another, until they make it to a field and keep going until the houses are out of sight.

“I thought I warned you about the murder thing.” Maggie tosses a blanket at her head and mutters at her to make herself comfortable, intently focusing on messing around with the contents of the box.

Lucy spreads out the blanket, flopping down on it and Maggie can feel eyes boring into the back of her skull.  

“There’s some food in that bag, I realized we haven’t really eaten today.” Maggie says not looking up from measuring out the contents of a coffee can.

“You’ve just thought of everything haven’t you, Sawyer?

“Well you only get one chance at a first impression right. So how am I doin’?

“Not too bad, not too bad at all. So now what?” Lucy asks as Maggie drops down next to her snagging some of the food.

“Now we wait.”

“For”

"Just trust me, it’s cooler in the dark.”

The chat until the sun finally disappears and Maggie gathers the contents of the box carrying the away from the blanket. She sets up the slew of the carefully constructed Roman candles and swiftly lights them.

Maggie loves fireworks but this time she isn’t watching the mini explosions as they decorate the sky. She’s watching the way they illuminate Lucy’s face and sparkle in her eyes.

After the last of the Roman Candles goes off she heads even further away from the blanket to light one of her favorites.

Maggie jogs back to Lucy and settles down next to her as they watch the effects of Maggie’s labor.

Purple smoke rises accompanied by a continuous shower of sparks. Lucy is grinning and Maggie feels like she’s walking on air.

“Okay I admit that was seriously cool. Where did you learn that?”

“My soulmate is pretty big into science. I picked up a few things.”

“So you talk to them, your soulmate I mean.”

“Not exactly, I don’t believe in soulmates so...”

“I thought you just said _—_

“I don’t think my soulmate knows that paper exists, it’s kind of hard to ignore on occasion. Do you….”

“I don’t have one.” Lucy reasons she isn’t technically lying. She doesn’t have one soulmate, she has two and it doesn’t matter since she can’t find either one of them right now anyway, maybe even ever depending… It’s not like anyone knows the side effects or long term consequences of…

Lucy shakes her head and Maggie doesn’t push. They fall into a content silence.

After a while Maggie breaks it. “We should probably start getting home.” Maggie is not looking forward to how much trouble she’s about to be in but she can’t bring herself to regret any of it.

“If we must.” Lucy sighs dramatically. She helps Maggie fold up the blanket, “I had a lot fun today.”

“Well had to make sure I was worthy didn’t I?”

“I knew you were worth it even before you threw that first punch, cowgirl. Although it definitely sealed the deal. Now how the fuck do we get back.”

They’re pretty inseparable after that. Maria doesn’t know whether to be happy Maggie finally has a friend around her own age or exasperated by the mischief they manage to get themselves into. After years of Maggie being ostracized from her peers Maria decides to just be grateful.

 

***************************

 

Maggie’s summers may have been rewarding since working for the Johnson's but summers with Lucy are _fun_ in way she hasn’t experienced since _—_

Well Maggie still actively tries to avoid thinking about Alex.

In what had quickly become a common occurrence Maggie looks over the paddock fence to where Lucy was stretched out in the sun like a cat.

“You know you _could_ help me with the horses, you don’t actually need to put any effort into tanning, you’re only half-white.”

“I helped you muck out the stalls this morning.” Lucy whines flipping over onto her front to give her back access to the rays of light.

"You did pull-ups on the cross-beams and informed me about the all the spots I was missing.” Maggie recounts flatly as she makes her way over to Lucy’s side.

“Exactly. I was both motivating you and pushing you to be thorough.”

"You yelled that your dead grandmother could do the job more efficiently.” Maggie deadpanned.

"That woman was a machine, God rest her soul.” Lucy proclaims without a hint of remorse in her voice.

Maggie strips off her flannel and chucks it at Lucy’s head, settling down in the grass to cool down and take a break from exercising the horses.

“You’re ridiculous.” Maggie says, closing her eyes. She just starting to drift off, the sun pleasantly warming her skin and aching muscles when Lucy’s voice jerks her back to the Present.

“Hey what’s that?”

“What’s what?” Maggie responds not bothering to open her eyes.

“Your arm.”

“It’s the upper limb of the human body comprising of regions between the glenohumeral joi-”

“Oh my god are you kidding me smart-ass I meant that mark.’ Lucy emphasized her statement by smacking the diagram where it was situated on Maggie’s forearm.

“Oh hmmm.” Maggie cracked an open, bringing her arm up to her face for a better look, “I don’t know looks like some kind of engine.”

“Ohhh it’s a motorcycle engine.”

“And you know that how?”

“It’s labeled. Why is there a dissected motorcycle engine with labeled parts on your arm?”

Maggie sighed pulling her arm back from Lucy and propping herself up on her elbows, “If I had to guess? Jeremiah is teaching Alex to ride and Alex nerd supreme wanted to know exactly how it works. They used to go riding together when Alex was a kid. Alex loved it. Eliza hated it when he stuck Alex on the back of his bike but she never could say no to Alex/Jeremiah bonding time no matter what form it took.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about a soulmate you don’t believe in…”

“Yeah well like I said it’s hard to ignore sometimes and I used to believe but that was a long time ago..”

“Hmm.” Lucy is staring at Maggie’s arm seeming not to have heard a word Maggie’s said. Maggie can practically see the gears turning in Lucy’s brain and that rarely spells out anything good.

“Whatever it is Lucy, no.”

"I was just thinking we could do a little learning of our own, like a summer project. Mess around with some of our own engines. Fix up a dirt bike maybe, work our way up to a cruiser, learn to ride ourselves. What’d’ya think?”

“That is actually not a terrible idea, it would be pretty awesome honestly. You’re just forgetting one thing.”

“And that is?”

“We have no money.”

“About that, I’ve been thinking-

“ Well, that’s never good.”

“There was this girl at the last base I lived on,” Lucy continued as if Maggie hadn’t interjected. “Any contraband you wanted, she could get it for you. Lois was never fond of her annoying kid sister hanging around but Faith didn’t mind. She was like the big sister I always wished Lois was, taught me a whole bunch of neat stuff.”

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t mean like, card tricks.”

“Technically she did teach me how to count cards….”

“So you want to want to what, go to Vegas? Poker night at Joe’s bar? Oh wait, no? Why not? Oh yea, because we’re twelve.”

“Excuse you. I am thirteen. Now, are you done being dramatic?”

“Excuse me? Excuse you, I am not the dramatic one in this friendship, that’d be you. That was grade A pessimistic sarcasm.”

“Whatever you say, cowgirl. Anyway before she got busted, by Lois might I add and kicked off the base Faith passed down some of her gear to me.”

“I would like to repeat my earlier statement of whatever it is Lucy, no.”

“Okay but you remember your sister talking about how no one’s been able to find decent fake I.D.’s for the last few years? We know a bunch of people here and there are a few colleges all less than three hours away that’s a huge market.”

“You aren’t serious.”

“C’mon why not, I know how, I have the tools, we know there’s a market and who would suspect two seventh-grade girls.”

“Lucy your father would literally murder you.”

“Please Mags, be serious. He would actually have to look at me in order to do that.”

“Lucy….”

“Or I suppose we could just steal the parts from a junkyard.”

“So according to you our options are theft or falsifying government documents?”

“We could always open a lemonade stand.” Lucy said in a poorly attempted voice of innocence, batting her eyes.

“Can’t you just like shave half your head or get something pierced if you want your dad to notice you so bad?”

“I can do that too, but that doesn’t help us _make_ money.” Lucy says standing up,  “I’ll see you later cowgirl.”

“Lucy, wait, where are you going?”

“Recon, I’ll catch you later.”

“Please don’t do anything” And Lucy was already well out of earshot. “Stupid.” Maggie says to herself, slumping back onto the ground in defeat.

About a week later Lucy climbs through Maggie’s window and dumps the contents of a duffel bag onto Maggie’s bed.

“Uhm Lucy where the hell did you even _get_ all of these I.D.’s?”

Lucy cocked an eyebrow leveling Maggie with an intense gaze, “Do you _really_ want me to answer that?”

Now Maggie had been a very inquisitive child from a very young age. Without Alex and by extension Jeremiah a few ink strokes away Maggie surely would have driven her family insane before she reached four.

She had a knack for solving puzzles, devoured the entire Nancy Drew series in less than two months and though her passion for joining the police force wouldn’t come until later she always did have an innate sense for easily detecting things others missed.

(It would take years for Marisa to forgive Maggie for revealing that the raccoon that had been causing a nightly ruckus was actually Marisa’s boyfriend sneaking in and out of her room.)

Still no amount of natural-born curiosity seemed like a match for looking too closely into Lucy Lane’s particular brand of getting things done.

For a long time Maggie would chalk it up to youthful inexperience, sure that if she ever ran into Lucy again, after years of specialized training and hard learned life lessons under her belt her tune would change.

What Maggie would come to find however was that even some fifteen years later having walked the beat in Gotham, gone toe-to-toe with the Joker and survived, almost married Batwoman, pseudo-trained with an elite black-ops organization and stunned some of the most powerful people in National City with her ability to withstand the legendary Kara Danvers pout, if it was Lucy Lane asking the question ‘do you really wanna know’ the answer would forever remain a resounding, No.

"I’m good.” Maggie differed.

“That’s what I thought.”

“So do you actually have a plan or….”

“I do indeed, c’mon.” Lucy said dragging Maggie down the hallway and out the back door grabbing a soccer ball on the way out. They passed a tanning Micaela on the way towards the yard.

Lucy passes the ball to Maggie who knew Lucy well enough to just play along with whatever hare-brained scheme she was cooking.

They continue running drills when Lucy casually speaks at a slightly louder but not conspicuously so volume, “Ugh I seriously needed to get out of the house and kick something. I was getting sooo sick of listening to Sheriff Duane ranting to my dad about not being able to find that guy who just crossed over the Kansa border.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s this dude they’ve been trying catch, runs a counterfeit I.D. ring. He’s like a ghost which is actually his tag, like literally. A neon green ghost shows up in well-trafficked but ‘hidden’ areas like under bleachers and on campus libraries. Apparently, if you leave what you’re looking for, he gets a price to you and once you follow the payment instructions he gets what you asked for.”

“That makes no sense how does he do that?”

“That’s why he’s like a ghost. Lockers, backpacks, people have found the notes or I.D’s in the pockets of the clothes they’re wearing. He’s just that good as are the fakes. No one knows how he does it.”

Maggie notices her sister not even pretending like she isn’t listening and rolls her eyes.

“That’s insane.”

Lucy just shrugs and changes up the drill.

A few weeks later Maggie stares at the small pile of money their exploits had accumulated in complete disbelief not quite believing that it had worked or worked so well, “ I feel the need to point out that as a cry for attention this has failed spectacularly but as the beginning of a criminal empire I’d say Gotham better watch out.”

Maggie watched in concern as Lucy’s eyes glazed over a bit.

“You know we make a pretty awesome team, we totally could _—_ ”

“Luce snap out of it, we’re finished. I won’t let this be your villain origin story.”

“You’re such a buzzkill sometimes, ya know with this we could probably just buy a brand new bike.”

“Lucy no, first trying to explain where we got the money to afford it would be impossible and also look realllllyyy suspicious besides the plan was to get a fixer-upper and work on it together it’s as much about the work we put into it as the finished project.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Hey no pouting we can order some really nice parts on the internet and no one would ever know I guess.” That made Lucy smile.

Lucy wanted a crotch-rocket (‘you just really like saying crotch rocket knock it off’ ) Maggie was staunchly in favor of getting a classic. They ended up with a Yamaha YZ465 that they did find in the junkyard even if they didn’t steal it and a used Triumph Bonneville T140 that needed work. They found the Triumph online for sale nearby and Lucy managed to bribe Lois into picking it up for them with her boyfriend’s pick-up truck.

Even after purchasing all the parts they still had money left over. Lucy insists Maggie hangs onto it.

“I want you to save it for a rainy day Maggie, I always had guaranteed ticket out his town, this can be yours.”

Maggie refuses but Lucy sticks it in the back of her closet when she’s not looking.

They spend the next few weeks tinkering with the bikes in between time at the stables. The librarian yells at them for returning grease covered books. They manage to get both bikes running to their immense pride.

They get used to the dirt bike first tearing through backyards and a few tree farms.   

They realize after the fact actually riding the Triumph is out of the question until one of them hits a growth spurt.

It won’t be until the summer after next but the first time Maggie pulls the bike onto the interstate she’s hooked. She’s playing with fire driving without a license, underage but knowing she missed her chance to do this with Lucy will make her feel reckless.

If she closes her eyes she can imagine Lucy’s arms are snug around her waist and how it would feel like nothing in the world can touch them.

When she opens her eyes there’s only the cold Nebraska wind keeping her company,

There may have been nothing like the freedom she found in horseback riding over the years but it doesn’t hold a candle to the horsepower actually capable of getting her out of this town.

                                                       

  *****************************

 

They’re hanging out in Maggie’s room, sprawled across her bed. Lucy has her face buried in a menu currently weighing their options for pizza toppings.

“Lucy. I’m-I like girls.” Maggie doesn’t mean to blurt it out but it’s been on the tip of her tongue for ages. Lucy is her best friend, her only friend and it just seems like something she ought to know.

Maggie doesn’t know what exactly she was expecting, she didn’t think Lucy would have a problem with it but she sort figured it would garner a reaction that was slightly _more._ In retrospect, she could not have imagined anything more Lucy if she tried.

“Cool. So I know we said pizza but I’m kind of feeling Chinese. Think we could get Micaela to drive us all the way out to Great Wall, their crab rangoons are my favorite. I can always ask Lois but -

“Lucy! I’m trying to come out here, like of the closet because the rumors are true and I’m a lesbian.”

“Yeah, I got that so I guess that means you do wanna eat out then, huh.”

Maggie chucks a pillow at Lucy’s waggling eyebrows and cheeky grin.

“You’re such an asshole, Luce.” The pillow is doing very little to muffle Lucy's intense laughter.

Lucy manages to get herself under control enough to speak, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it and Mags you know I’m bi right.”

“You _—_ but _—_ what _—_ ” Maggie can feel her jaw hanging open but she has nowhere near the functioning brain capacity to do anything about it.

Lucy reaches over to snap it shut for her, “So I guess that means we _aren’t_ dating then, huh.”

“I hate you so much, Lane.”

“Nah, you don’t.” Lucy jumps up pressing a kiss to Maggie’s cheek. “C’mon, Chinese.”

“Alright, Alright.” Maggie’s just glad her complexion hides the worst of the blush.

In the car, Maggie slips her hand behind the seat on the passenger side reaching for Lucy’s out of her sister’s eyesight. Lucy links their fingers together despite the awkward position and they hold hands the whole way.

They make it official, amongst each other at least, somewhere in between the summer and eighth grade starting. Nothing much changes really, they’re still inseparable best friends just now there’s some kissing when no one else is around.

The year passes in a haze, there’s classes and soccer but mostly there’s just each other.

Maggie still spends a lot of time in the hayloft after school only this time she isn’t reading...or by herself.

They get caught making out under the bleachers, a week before the start of summer vacation.

They’re strong enough to weather the hateful storm from their peers but they’re no match for the hurricane that is General Sam Lane when he catches wind, pulling Lucy out of class in the middle of the day.

Maggie ditches as soon as she gets the chance terrified she’ll never see her girlfriend again. She can’t reach Lucy and her aunt’s house is empty and Maggie is stuck pacing her room desperately trying to think clearly enough to formulate a plan.

The knocking on Maggie’s window is frantic startling her out of her daze. She opens it only to immediately find herself with an armful of Lucy clinging as tightly as she can.

“I can’t stay, I barely made it over here the General is ready to move out as we speak. I just…...I couldn’t  leave without saying good-bye.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be _good-bye_ , good-bye.”  Lucy looks up at Maggie with the saddest eyes and Maggie hates Samuel Lane with every fiber of her being.

“No promises we can’t keep Sawyer.” Lucy just manages to keep her voice from wavering.

“Right. I know, it’s just.” Maggie doesn’t have the same success.

“Hey, I know, I know.” They collapse into each other, Maggie will have bruises from Lucy’s grip that she’ll mourn the fading of because it means the last trace of Lucy is officially gone.

"I love you, Lucy.”

"I know.”

"Fuck off, Lane.” Maggie grins at the reference trying to surreptitiously swipe at the tears leaking from her eyes.

“I love you too, Maggie. Don’t forget me yeah?” Lucy pulls her into a kiss and Maggie kisses back like the world is ending because she’s young and Lucy is her first love and it might as well be.

“I never could Luce.” Lucy wipes the tears from Maggie’s eyes and studies her face like she’s committing it to memory. She drops one last chaste kiss on Maggie’s lips before moving back to the window.

“You give ‘em hell kid.” Lucy orders.

“You too, asshole.” Maggie grins in spite of the situation.

“Always.” Lucy gives a mocking two-finger salute.

And then she was gone.

Maggie can’t believe she has to start High School without Lucy, even though she was originally only supposed to stay two or three years until her dad got relocated again her aunt agreed to keep Lucy so she could finish out school in one place.

It might have only been three years but having no friends hits a lot harder now that Maggie knows what she’s missing. And none of that even touches the broken heart she’s still nursing.

Maggie starts the school year with a chip on her shoulder and the sleeves ripped off her t-shirt. Something major happened to her soulmate as well over the summer.

Maggie starts to notice the shorthand notes and calculations taking up less and less space until they’re confined mostly to her hands or occasionally legs.

In their place rise what Maggie likes to refer to as Alex’s faux tattoo sleeves punk phase.

A lot of them Maggie can tell Alex has done herself because she hasn’t improved much on the art front so it’s a lot of technical stuff with a dark edge that looks pretty awesome if Maggie is honest.

Things like the actual bones in their arms and diagrams of DaVinici’s flying machines, cogs and gears and circuitry and DNA models and dissected motorcycle engines and once a very _interesting_ interpretation of the periodic table of elements all interspersed with Anarchy symbols and skulls and biohazard signs and darkness.

Maggie admits the weirdness Alex draws grows on her. There’s something about the rawness of it, the fight behind it and the d.i.y that speaks to the actual punk movement and Maggie can appreciate that.   

But Maggie can’t deny she _adores_ when she wakes up occasionally to Jeremiah’s work on her skin. He transforms their limbs into metallic robot arms, and nautical adventures, medieval chainmail and dragon scales.

The constellations are still Maggie’s favorite though.

For her birthday that year Maggie finds her arms covered in Dinosaur fossils dripping with blood.

Alex mentions gaining a sister in passing, she rarely writes anything personal anymore. Song lyrics, angry and honest are the closest thing she gets. Sometimes they say more than Alex probably means to.

It all suits Maggie just fine.

If Maggie believed in fate and soulmates she might find it poetic that they were suffering in similar ways. Maggie felt Alex’s pain and rebellion like an echo and she bore the marks with pride, as they aided in her own expression of rage at the world.  

It’s strange in the beginning after years hiding her marks to suddenly have them not only visible but essentially on display. She grows accustomed to it soon enough. Not a single one of her shirts retains their sleeves.

The first time someone goes to shove her into a locker she dodges them but there’s no way avoid the accompanying insults as the word  “Dyke.” assaults her ears.

That weekend she drives her bike out to Lincoln and then as far as Omaha combing the racks of thrift stores until she finds exactly what she’s looking for. It takes two months worth of trips and a few more cities before she finally finds it.

The leather jacket is heavy and perfectly broken in, it hangs loose on her frame without dwarfing her. There are a few short spikes on the shoulders, studs on the lapels and an anarchy patch sewn into the right sleeve.

She grabs a couple of cans of spray paint from the hardware store on her way back. She moves the patch to chest and removes the sleeves entirely. She covers the whole back panel of the jacket with thick diagonal stripes that form the colors of the rainbow. When it dries she grabs the white can and paints ‘Dyke’ over it.

She takes back the power from their words and relishes crunch of bone when she returns the favor with her fists.

Maggie can’t watch _The Land Before Time_ anymore.

It fills her with bitterness and rage because she has the words now she didn’t have then words like racists, misogynists, and homophobes. There is no Great Valley at the end of the road where everyone magically become friends after learning a valuable lesson.

In real life, there’s only cycles of hatred, broken bones and survival if you’re lucky.

                                                              

    **************************

 

Maggie considers dropping out and getting her GED (for all of two seconds before deciding she wouldn’t give them satisfaction) because Sophomore year begins with a split lip and roll call that starts with—

“Mar-gur-i-ta, your parents big on hitting the sauce kid?” There was a time where Maggie would have let loose a scathing retort at least but nowadays she can’t even muster up an eye roll. She sits stone-faced and refuses to engage.

It gets her sent to the principal’s office.

She spends enough time in said office that she asks if she can just get her own name plaque.

She’s grateful that Mrs.Thompson finds her more entertaining and sympathetic than her list of sins might imply. The latest of which is apparently cheating which Maggie is quite honestly affronted about.

Once school started Maggie noticed amidst the full sleeves, her left inner forearm resumed its use as scrap paper along with her hands. It’s starting to cause some problems as evidenced by her current predicament in which she’s pleading her case against her biology teacher.

“No offence but the test was on lab safety, most of this is advanced microbiology and” Maggie looks at her arm intently for a minute, “I think physics. The point being none of it would help me on a test, that I could pass in my sleep anyway.”

There’s a lot of huffing and puffing that Mrs. Thompson puts an end to by all but throwing Mr. Wick out of the office without approving his disciplinary action request.

“Any chance I could just take the final now and be done with bio?” Mrs. Thompson pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Just get back to class.” Well it had been worth a try.

Most of her classes are so boring that Maggie finds herself grateful that the 'science stuff', the childhood moniker drifts into her mind, resumes on her arms because she'd rather sit around trying to decipher Alex's latest experiments than listen to her racist teacher's idiocy. If asked she wouldn't even deny actively enjoying her soulmate's writing again, that's how much the school year has been wearing on her. Not that anyone one ever does ask.

Things stagnate again. Maggie goes to school and gets into fights.

She wipes the blood off in the hay loft and tries not to think of the way Lucy would kiss every inch of freshly cleaned off skin when they'd patch each other up after a brawl. 

Maggie does the bare minimum of class work and starts taking out books from the library again to decode the esoteric markings. The fall soccer season finishes and Maggie uses her free time to try and start a GSA. She fails but finds the A.V. club in the process. 

February comes before she knows it starting the 'spring season' even though the ground is still frozen solid. 

It happens in the middle of a game like a disturbance in the force. Maggie falls to her knees from the pain wracking her body. She knows somehow the pain isn’t hers but it still feels like her heart’s being ripped out of her chest.

It shouldn’t be possible because Maggie doesn’t believe in soulmates and even so-called experts debate the existence of soulmate connections strong enough share emotion or sensation.

Maggie’s buried her past experiences but there is no banishing the anguish coursing through her at present. It’s making denial difficult and the panic she feels slowly rising is most certainly her own.

Maggie blacks out and when she wakes in her own bed worry doesn’t quite cover what she’s feeling because her arms are the cleanest they’ve ever been.

She only breathes easier when she notices a small star doodled delicately on her wrist. Maggie spends hours stressing on whether or not to reach out. How to. She feels a deep blanket of sorrow and she doesn’t know how to break through the silence she imposed.

Maggie remains locked in a battle with herself. A few days later Maggie notices the emergence of new ‘sleeves’.

They’re different. Less technical, less in your face dark. They’re beautiful, fanciful but hauntingly so and they change more frequently now. In the past designs sometimes took days to fade and weren’t always replaced right away. Now there are elaborate masterpieces nearly every day. The technique is slightly shaky but Maggie notices rapid improvement.

She can’t help but wonder who’s painting them. There’s something familiar about them, an essence of Jeremiah though she knows for certain it isn’t his work.

The intensity of the unknown episode fades. The marks return to their new normal, new sleeves a part of it and Maggie takes the coward's way out and let’s all of it go unremarked upon.

 

 ***********************

 

It had been a long day in which something had just seemed _off_. It was grating on Maggie’s nerves and putting a damper over everything.

She was glad to see the day finally ending.

Maggie sits in the bath with a bag of frozen peas on her already black and rapidly swelling eye. She’s ostensibly soaking her muscles after a rough game but really she just wants to be able to cry in peace. Whoever said lesbians were more accepted than gay guys clearly never experienced being a lesbian on girls’ sports team in the midwest.

Maggie’s considering the merits of just sleeping in the tub when the sight of her thighs unsettles her. Words are slowly being spelled out in...it can’t be. Maggie stretches out her leg to try and get a clearer view because _holy shit_ that looks like blood.

At first Maggie thinks surely she must be wrong but as the the words start forming her heart sinks.

 _not enough_ _failure_ _not enough_ _failure_ over and over again.

Maggie scrambles out of the tub grabbing the first makeshift writing utensil she reaches, which happens to be eyeliner. She doesn’t know what to do it’s not like she could call for help. She doesn’t even know this girl . Not really.

She crosses a line through the not and the failure. It’s nowhere near enough. So she writes _perfect_ . Then she moves to the other leg and writes _hi_ she may not believe in soulmates anymore but she can’t very well just leave hers to suffer alone or worse.

A few minutes pass and the bloody words disappear, new ones written in pen hastily take their place.

_Ducky?! Omg I’m so sorry i didn’t think, i’m not sure what i thought but you haven’t responded since we were kids and I wasn’t really thinking at all truthfully I certainly never meant for you to see. I’m so sorry._

_Hey it’s alright there’s no need to apologize to me. Do you wanna um talk about it?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew finally got this first chapter up it's been a long time working on the whole thing but I decided screw it, I'm gunna post the first part. This will probably be a 4 part story in total. The second part is written and being edited and the 3rd part is a bit more than half-done, the rest is sketched out. I'm not even going to try and promise an update schedule because I am a mess but I do promise that this story will be finished.
> 
> Basically this entire monstrosity was sparked by [this drawing](https://smallandsundry.tumblr.com/post/142489015590/also-have-a-hipster-bike-messenger-alex-danvers) which is awesome and idk I was staring at the art on Alex's arms and then next thing I know I'm 40k words in whispering softly to myself wtf. 
> 
> So yeah definitely go stare in awe of tattooed bike messenger Alex and show some love in that direction. Also there's a fic for it, if you like Alex/Lucy go check out [ bike messenger!Alex ](http://archiveofourown.org/series/604408) cause it's fucking amazing and one of my all time favs. js 
> 
> Shout out to [murdershegoats](http://murdershegoat.tumblr.com//) for basically coming into my inbox and screaming at me to write the thing when inspiration first struck. Then listening to me ramble endlessly about this fic and reading it over when I was like fuck is this terrible? So Thank you!!! 
> 
> The evolution of Maggie liking _The Land Before Time_ into full-fledged Dinokid!Maggie is for [nerdsbianhokie](http://nerdsbianhokie.tumblr.com/)
> 
> As always you can find me at [change-the-rules](http://change-the-rules.tumblr.com/). If you liked this so far come yell at me or come yell about anything else esp if it's Supergirl or f/f related. srsly tho the only reason this story is even getting written is because people came to yell with/at me on tumblr so do with that what you will


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first my eternal gratitude and first born child(that I will probs never have but shh) to [murdershegoats](http://murdershegoat.tumblr.com//) for the beta and endless help with this chapter.
> 
> Next, Thank you all so so much for all your lovely comments they mean the world! 
> 
> And now we're switching on over to Alex's POV, just a note Alex is under the erroneous assumption her soulmate is male so there's a lot of 'he' pronouns being thrown around and the occasional singular 'they' when Alex is talking about her soulmate or to Maggie who is mainly referred to as 'Ducky' in these upcoming sections just to try and head off any confusion.
> 
> Also I made Kara 3 years younger than Alex in this, when she crashed a year earlier than in canon so Kara's around 10 at that point and Alex 13 and for reference Maggie is a year and a half younger than Alex and Lucy fall somewhere in between so probably like a year younger than Alex. It needed to work out that way for story reasons. 
> 
> Last note before we dive in, this picks up right where the last chapter left off but from Alex's perspective so there's a little more dealing with self-harm but again it's nothing very graphic and isn't a running theme but I didn't want to omit a trigger warning should someone need it.

Over 1500 miles away, Alex Danvers sits in her own bathtub staring down at her leg.

She stares at her leg as her mind races, trying to surface from the swirling black void of her chaotic thoughts.

She stares as the small blade she barely remembers picking up slips from her grasp and bounces off the tiles. She stares and doesn’t hear the clatter.

She stares at her leg as thin lines of blood continue to sluggishly drip tinging the water pink.

Alex Danvers stares at her leg and all she can see is two neatly printed letters and her entire life flashing before her eyes.

Alex knows she’s smart. People tell her she’s bright for her age all the time. Which is stupid. She’s smart period, certainly smarter than half the adults who comment on her intelligence are anyway.

Her earliest memories are of fluorescent lighting and stainless steel, brightly colored liquids and an array of chemical scents.

She plays with 3-D models of DNA molecules and human anatomy in the corner of her mother’s lab, traces star charts and chases after robots in her dad’s office.

Her father swears up and down that her first word was scintillation.

Eliza’s first reaction is that “There is no way Alexandra said that word.” followed immediately by  “You brought our baby to a radiation experiment?!” because she _knows_ her husband.

His response of  “She likes the glowy lights?” does not do him any favors.

So naturally Eliza’s argument that Alex’s first word was alexipharmic had Jeremiah scoffing because “If there’s no way she said scintillation then there’s no way in hell she said alexipharmic, maybe she was trying to say her own name.” before his brain caught up and “Wait, why was our daughter around poison?”

'”She wasn’t, she was near the antidote.” is not nearly as encouraging as Eliza thinks it is.

Alex’s first word is actually ‘fuck’ courtesy of a sleep-deprived accident prone grad student in an adjacent lab whose fear of Dr. Eliza Danvers would deprive Jerimiah years of milking the hilarity of his baby genius’ first utterance being profanity.

Alex learns the names of planets and constellations the way other children learn the states and their capitols, learns about ‘the building blocks of life’ as easily as her colors and shapes.

Her mother wants her to be a doctor. She says, “Oh it doesn’t matter what kind, dear just as long as you get both your PhD and MD.” In a way that most certainly hints that she does care that her daughter follows in her footsteps.

Eliza’s ecstatic to find five-year-old Alex pouring over medical journals.

Her father just wants her to be happy.

It’s Jeremiah who reigns in his wife when she starts to push too hard. Who helps them find the line between helping Alex unlock her full potential and placing too much pressure on her tiny shoulders.

Eliza gives her a copy of the periodic table of elements to memorize and Jeremiah lets her finger paint it across the walls.

He’s all for supporting Alex in her academic pursuits but he doesn’t want it to come at the expense of her enjoying being a kid.

Adult Alex if ever asked what she misses most about home, given the person asking is someone she’s inclined to be truthful with, doesn’t hesitate to say the beach but there’s always a wistfulness to her gaze that speaks to much unspoken.

Jeremiah was born on the coast, quite literally in a cove. He grew up loving the ocean and they always joked that he had saltwater in his veins. So naturally when it comes time to make his own home with his own family he can’t imagine settling anywhere too far from a beach.

When Alex is born he passes this love on to her, taking constant advantage of their home’s proximity to the ocean.

He brings Alex down often and because she’s always been an overachiever Alex can surf as soon as she can stand. They build architecturally sound sand castles and dig up sand crabs to live in them. They eat ice cream by the shore too close to dinner, giggling promises that it will be their little secret.

Eliza always knows but she reprimands them with a smile, emptying the picnic basket she’s carried down from the house so they can enjoy dinner on the sand overlooking the waves.

When the sun sets, sometimes Eliza departs, other times she stays. But Jeremiah always sits and spins tales of the cosmos for Alex to hear.

She favors anything to do with outer space, her mother smiles because Alex loves the facts most of all. Designations and chemical compositions are structured, they make sense in her brain.

The stories though, the stories get under skin because she tends to think in algorithms but her dad’s passion is contagious.

He helps her chart constellations on her skin as he spins myths and legends. She grins knowing somewhere out there her soulmate gets to have them too. Her dad’s told her half a dozen soulmate origin stories by the time she’s five but her favorite by far is that soulmates exist because their atoms were near each other when the universe was created and are drawn back together over time.

It’s as close as science has gotten to explaining the phenomena, though it doesn’t quite explain the nature of the marks and when her analytic mind burns itself out trying to solve a puzzle that’s stumped humanity for ages, her father soothes her by telling her she is simply made of stardust.  

She falls asleep to the words, “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” emblazoned on a poster tacked up across from her bed.

Alex doesn’t stop seeking answers but the frustration of not knowing is tempered as Jeremiah teaches her about the humanity in the stars.

He nurtures her affinity for what’s just beyond her reach. They take trips to the planetarium as well, where with Alex’s head on his chest, they explore galaxies and planetary systems few have ever laid eyes on. Alex learns that there’s so much more beyond just humanity in the stars.

He impresses upon her the responsibility of being a keeper of such knowledge.

So yeah, Alex would _say_ she misses the beach but really what she misses is her dad.

She won’t even remember the last time she took her board to the waves, though she’ll think it was long enough ago that she went not sober, high and still a little drunk stumbling from some nameless guy’s bed desperate to feel something but looking in all the wrong places.

The trip would have been ill-advised in her state but still closer to elusive peace of mind she sought then the partying scene she’d fallen into could provide.

She’ll make a mental note to take a day-trip down to the coast. There at least if she closes her eyes she can almost hear her dad weaving stories over the backdrop of crashing waves.

Alex has a near perfect memory, clinging tight especially to any of her dad but even she can barely recall every story her dad told. There are just too many. Some that don’t even originate on Earth.

One of Jeremiah's favorite topics was soulmates and while she didn’t place much stock in most of the different origin stories, particularly after accepting the scientific atom theory as fact, thanks to her dad she’s known about their existence as far back as she can remember.

Alex can’t really think of a time during her childhood when she didn’t have a marker close at hand.

Her father encouraged it. While her mother would often sigh and suggest she get used to paper instead of scribbling all over herself.

It was a stark reminder for Alex of her parent's dichotomy. They had differing opinions and approaches to many things not least of which was soulmates, no doubt based on their own upbringings but that never mattered, not when it counted.

It’s with perfect clarity that Alex can recall the rote script their bickering would devolve into without fail if Alex asked a ‘why’ in reference to the marks.

Jeremiah always ending his thoughts with, “Or maybe ancient gods, no one really knows so why not.”

Eliza would then glare at Jeremiah and say “There is a perfectly logical scientific explanation. _”_

“But we don’t know what it is so…”

“Yes but we know the phenomenon is related to something present on and native to Earth specifically because of relevant data gathered from extraterrestrial subjects, so science.”

‘Okay it’s science, I’m just saying-”

Alex knew there was no real animosity in the argument if it could even be called that and it never failed to make her laugh.

She loved to hear her dad’s over-dramatization of what he lovingly referred to as the mouthful ‘Romeo and Juliet starring emphasis on the Jewish Montagues nee Baums vs the Hippie Capulets nee Danvers but no one dies so star-crossed lovers isn’t wholly accurate rendering the comparison contextually unsound but pop culturally relevant’.

Eliza simply called it how they ‘met’ or if she was being _whimsical_ their love story.   

For the longest time Eliza resented soulmates. To her, they came to represent dissension.

She was raised to follow Halacha by parents who were each other’s Bashert.

She was taught that the marks that linked them together were a physical manifestation of “destiny”, real and solid proof of God arranged matches.

The marks were simply accepted as signifiers of one’s divinely predestined soulmate.

This is where Eliza struggled.

Kabbalists told of husband and wife as “plag nishmasa – half souls”. It was said that ‘God takes the soul whose time has come for it to enter into this world, and separates it into two halves, placing one half in the male and one half in the female. And when these two halves meet again in matrimony, their original connection and love bond comes back’.

Eliza learned to revere the Divine but also to respect science from her parents who were doctors.

Her mother was an immunobiologist, her father a neurosurgeon, and they believed in God and medicine in that order. Where their emunah strengthened their scientific convictions, Eliza faltered on beliefs requiring sheer faith.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe per se, it’s just her mind always burned with questions that were never satisfied with ‘that’s just how it is’.

So she searched and she studied but it seemed there were no easy explanations for the answers she sought. It was this very pursuit that led Eliza to her future career path and perhaps some of that research that would lead her to accept her soulmate.

Eliza knows fairly early on her own bashert is not Jewish. Not with the way he covers their arms in ink long before the first ceremonial inscription after becoming a bar mitzvah.

Eliza doesn’t understand how this quirky free-spirited boy who so casually crafts artistic masterpieces and to-do lists alike on their skin could ever be her other half, her perfect complement.

She heeds custom and waits until her own bat mitzvah before making first contact. Even after that, she’s resistant to the idea of a predetermined match. She focuses on her studies and Jeremiah never wavers in his respectful attempts to win her over.

She eventually falls for his charm, falls for his inquisitiveness, falls for his kindness. She resists and then one day after she’s absentmindedly scribbled them down on her skin in frustration he starts quietly filling in numbers that have been eluding her, correcting equations that have been thwarting her and she realizes she never stood a chance.

She falls and she falls but he catches her and it isn’t until then she considers that maybe fate or God knew what they were doing after all.

She doesn’t concede the science of it all but it just so happens that her acceptance brings her one step closer, which is a step further than many, into actually discovering how the marks work.

That seems like bashert in and of itself. The irony isn’t lost on her.

Eliza keeps quiet on soulmates much of the time, leaving her husband to his joy at covering the topic with their daughter. She says only one thing to Alex on the matter.

“It took me a long time but I do believe now your bashert is someone who will complement you perfectly, and whom you will complement perfectly. Fate doesn’t make mistakes, Sweetie. ”

It seems out of character enough for her scientist mother that Alex always remembers it.

Jeremiah, meanwhile was raised on a hippie commune on the Northern coast of California. His father was a doctor too, well a self-professed doctor of love at any rate and his mother had been a flight attendant before quitting her job to drop out of society and ‘truly live’.  

His biological parents were _not_ soulmates as it were, though they would eventually get around to meeting up with the ones who shared their marks. The end result being all of them raising their brood of kids with various biological ties, together.

Jeremiah was raised to honor the genuine connection between soulmates over an idealized true love sentiment. The emphasis was on the ‘kinship of man in like the vast universe.’ It’s just he never believed that those two concepts had to be mutually exclusive.

Jeremiah ended up being the black sheep of the family. He came by his artistic talent and passion for tale-weaving honestly but no one knew quite where his scientific zeal came from.  

His parents were committed to the life long after the fad died out and many of their peers returned to ‘reality’. Jeremiah venturing into academia and working with government contracts appalled his parents who couldn’t believe a son they raised would ‘sell out to the man’.

They mellowed out a bit after he married Eliza, with her as a barometer they realized that in terms of the ‘real world’ Jeremiah hadn’t strayed nearly as far from his roots as they feared.

Jeremiah converts to Judaism before the wedding mostly for the sake of Eliza’s relationship with her parents. It helps that he finds the culture surrounding his soulmate endlessly fascinating especially in the face of the completely lax way in which he was raised.

He finds similarity and intrigue in the mysticism and faith of Judaism, not all that different from the ‘counter-culture’ he himself grew up in. He falls first, for the romantic side of things so speak and all that entails. He finds so many stories he cannot wait to share and loves every second when he eventually gets the chance to do so with his and Eliza’s own children.

There’s flip side of the coin as well, a framework only formal school well after his developmental years and scientific method had come close to touching. Jeremiah’s science inclined mind revels in the logic of talmudic debate. He finds himself appreciative of the structure that halacha provides in a way unique perhaps to that of one who grew up with no boundaries.

Jeremiah studies and as time passes Eliza falls all over again because religion isn’t all that important to either of them, not in the way it is to her parents at least but here her soulmate is devoting years of his life to conversion.

For her, but also not because she sees how he embraces the faith she was raised with for himself.

Eliza finds herself surprised as she learns so much more than she ever expected through Jeremiah’s eyes as he discovers this whole new world. She sees how seamlessly it fits into _his_ life and it makes her think that maybe faith can be complementary to the science she always believed was in fact contrary.

Visiting family Eliza, hand intertwined with her newly converted bashert, catches the twinkling eye of her Bubbie who smiles with a knowing glint and Eliza realizes she doesn’t feel her usual chafe of lingering resentment for ‘fate’.  

When Alex was born Jeremiah was actually somewhat nervous that it would just be the two of them raising her, having had at least three adults around growing up at any given moment and occasionally up to seven, two just seemed, lacking.

They figure it out quick enough as have a millennia of parents before them and Jeremiah for his life long love affair with words never realized just how compelling the simple word father could be.  

There was something about the way a child could guilelessly ask why the sky was blue? do fish sleep? and where do we go when we die? all in the same breath that delighted Jeremiah where it frustrated others.

He was more than happy to handle the existential questions from his precocious five-year-old. He’s never more grateful for the role typically falling to him when the general who? what? When? Where? Why? How? Produces the question can you have more than one soulmate?

“You can, it doesn’t happen often but some people find themselves sharing marks with two or sometimes even more soulmates.”

Alex is content with his straightforward answer and satisfied lets it slip from her mind but Jeremiah never forgets how his daughter learned Arabic even when she herself does. He keeps the feeling that to himself not mentioning it to anyone (though he knows his parents would be endlessly amused) not even Eliza.

It’s not that he thinks she’ll have a problem with it as such. Eliza was fine with the triads and even the soulmate quad when visiting the commune. She’s a biologist, a woman of science and well, they lived in California.

He loves his wife and knows that she loves their daughter, knows she only wants what’s best for Alex. Eliza just doesn’t always find the most optimal ways for conveying the sentiment properly.

So when it only ever seems like there’s a single set of writing he figures he’ll handle Eliza if the time ever does come.

He always does.

Alex’s scientific mind wants to know the whys and the hows and Jeremiah can see so very much of his wife in their daughter. He only wishes they could see the similarities between them the way he does, it might prevent the worst of the clashing.

He knows Alex hates that there isn’t an easy answer as much as Eliza herself does and Jeremiah can only hope he’s managed to temper some of that vexation over the years in at least one of them.

Eliza tries by sharing facts and her own conclusions from her own years in tireless pursuit of answers.

Jeremiah, of course, takes the alternate route attempting to instill in Alex a peace with the unknown.

He tells his daughter that, “At the end of the day we don’t really know _why_ or _how_ the marks show up but whether it’s fate or happenstance, the work of one or more higher powers or something in earth’s atmosphere there is no denying that they exist. That you are unequivocally connected to some other person(s). That connection is what matters most.”

He emphasizes the connection because many people think that just because you have a soulmate it’s a done deal but love even where soulmates are concerned can’t be taken it must be given. He makes sure Alex knows this.

“In the end your mom _chose_ to love me and I’m grateful every day for that because truthfully I’ve always felt her right in here.” He would say with a hand resting lightly over his chest.

Alex’s soulmate disappears and Jeremiah won’t lie to his only baby girl when she asks. Happily ever after isn’t guaranteed and he hopes the fates aren’t cruel enough to permanently separate Alex from her soulmate so young.

“So my soulmate might not ever speak to me again? Might choose not to love me?”

 Jeremiah's heart breaks but he repeats his vow of honesty like a mantra inside his own head. 

“It’s always a possibility, Champ but there isn’t anything they can do about the connection. And that’s worth something.”

Alex always falls asleep to the lullaby of two softly beating hearts. It’s been on the edge of her consciousness since before she was two and she doesn’t even notice it for what it is until the day she falls asleep to the real thing.

 

***************************

 

The first time a mark appears on her skin Alex lets the excitement get the better of her.  She rambles a bit before putting together that her soulmate can’t write. Alex takes it upon herself to teach him, with a little help from her dad every now and then.

Alex’s soulmate doesn’t really talk to her aside from what’s necessary for learning a new language but she is never in short supply of doodles dotting her skin. Her soulmate seems to favor animals and so it’s apt Alex feels like there’s an entire circus performing in her stomach whenever a new mark appears.

Jeremiah tries to teach Alex to paint, in his studio off the side of the house but it was never really her thing. She likes it’s something he tries to bond with her soulmate over though, who is actually becoming quite the artist in his own right.

Alex’s dad always tries to snap pictures of the bigger works before her soulmate washes them off or Alex’s absentminded equations get in the way. He says it’s important to document an artist's progress and hangs them up in his studio, although the occasional one will get tacked up next to Alex’s A’s on the fridge.

Her soulmate seems overly fond of dinosaurs and Alex ends up with an entire shelf devoted to paleontology.

She drags her parents to see Jurassic Park after the third time she finds the logo doodled on her person and it’s entertaining enough. Alex does kind of enjoy the dinner afterward discussing the scientific inaccuracies of the movie more than the film itself.

She still goes to see it a second time for reasons that have everything to with her soulmate, plus the robotics for the dinosaurs are pretty top notch. She doesn’t consider the way her palms sweat, in a way that has nothing to do with concern for character safety when Lex uses her hacking skills to lock the door on the velociraptor, as a contributing factor.

It’s dinosaurs coupled with Alex’s penchant for reading textbooks about them instead of fiction that bring the soulmates on speaking terms for the first time.

Sometimes the kids in her class call her weird or nerdy in what’s meant to be an insulting manner. She tries not to let it bother her too much besides when it’s her ‘nerdiness’ that leads to her first real conversation with her soulmate it kind of balances out.

Even if her soulmate thinks the scientific accuracy of T-Rex skin covering is _lame_.

There’s a span of time where she talks with her soulmate every day and it’s the happiest Alex has ever been. They talk about everything and nothing. Alex wants to know everything there is to know about her soulmate since she’s done her fair amount of sharing over the years.

She files away every detail like how _The Land Before Time_ was her soulmate’s favorite movie until discovering _Jurassic Park_ and how he wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up.

She knows there’s scar on the back of his neck from landing on a rock after falling out of a tree and even though she can’t really believe it at first that her soulmate can’t swim.

Alex promises to teach him one day if he still hasn’t learned and ignores the fact that her landlocked soulmate is more supportive of her aquatic dreams than her mom is.

Alex starts using sharpies because now that she knows for a fact her soulmate sees the marks she wants to protect them as much as she can from the sun and saltwater while she actively pursues her aspirations of going pro on the surf circuit.

Her mom starts to realize she’s serious about wanting to surf professionally and there’s a lot lecturing when her dad is out of earshot. Alex complains to Ducky about it with her arm hidden just under the table out of her mother’s sight.

Alex spends the summer much like her previous summers a lot of surfing, a lot of reading and some freelance science projects. Unlike her previous summer, she feels like her soulmate is with her every step of the way, their bond becoming stronger and stronger.

She knows there’s no real scientific basis for soulmates experiencing shared emotions or sensation but she isn’t quite sure how else to explain what’s been happening.

Her dad catches her turning face seemingly toward nothing at the dinner table one night and can’t help but laughingly ask what she’s doing. She misses the look her parent's exchange when she says “Ducky’s sitting in the sun, feels nice.”

Then one day in late October it feels like her heart is breaking. She isn’t sure what happened only that something has and she stumbles into her father’s studio in tears. Jeremiah holds her and strokes her hair while she cries tears that aren’t hers.

Ducky stops writing and Alex can’t get her soulmate to respond to any of her pleas. If she weren’t so worried Alex would be impressed with her soulmate’s ability to avoid any stray marks whatsoever. The only thing keeping her sane is the staunch belief that she would _know_ if her soulmate were no longer alive.

The frequent blood smears that start appearing a few months later don’t do much to ease her fears. She tries in vain to find out where her soulmate lives. She begs her parents because there _has_ to be something they can do.

There isn’t of course, she can see it in her dad’s eyes. She knows he’s just as worried as she is, despises that a reminder that they’re _here,_ a message that her soulmate may not even see is the best they can do.

Alex draws band-aids whenever she sees blood and hates that it feels like not doing anything at all.

So she takes first-aid classes and reads even more medical journals and texts. Researches alternative medicine, medicinal plants, traditional Chinese practices, anything and everything she can get her hands on.

She doesn’t know what exactly is wrong with her soulmate at any given time but she can only hope that some of the knowledge she’s desperately acquiring and sharing helps even a little.  

Alex doesn’t know that Jeremiah tried to track her soulmate down. Tried to do the impossible but he didn’t have so much as a name or concrete location. Predictably the search fails.

He couldn’t love Alex more if tried but he does anyway, hoping her soulmate will feel some of it too.  

Alex never does stop writing. Against her nature she does stop seeking answers though, not wanting to put any pressure on her soulmate but unwilling to let them forget she’s there.

Because if nothing else Alexandra Danvers believes in facts and the fact is she is connected to her soulmate and that means something to her regardless of whether or not they actively communicate.

 

**************************

 

By the time she’s ten and already officially enrolled in her first college class, Alex has been sitting in on university lectures for years, her parents’, their colleagues’ and friends’.

Her mom wants her to start seriously thinking about taking more college-level classes or at the very least finish high school early but Alex is way more interested in calculations for catching the perfect wave than she is trying to determine her entire academic future before junior high.

It’s Jeremiah who keeps the peace gently ushering Alex out the door with, “I’ll catch you down there champ, bet you can’t catch more waves than your old man today.” As if Alex doesn’t beat him every day to his immense pride.

Then he’ll coax Eliza to the bench that overlooks the beach. They’ll sit, watching as their daughter effortlessly lands a frontside air reverse and he’ll remind his wife that Alex is already extraordinary and she doesn’t need to graduate college in her teens to prove it.

“She should be allowed to find her own way. Unless you think I’d be better off making candles on the commune like my parents wanted.”  

Eliza will concede, strongly opposing any suggestion she’s anything like Jeremiah's parents. That night she'll make sure to hug Alex extra tight and whisper how proud she is into her daughter's ear. 

The reprieve will only be temporary but he wouldn’t change a single thing about either of the amazing women in his life.

At some point half-way through seventh grade something imperceptible shifts and Alex cannot for the life of her figure out what it is. There’s a rightness but also a longing...

She doesn’t have too long to dwell on it because soon after, in an instant everything she’s ever known changes.

Alex is twelve years old and she’s destined for greatness. She’s an only child, the center of her parent’s world. She’s made of star-stuff both figuratively and literally with nothing to stop her from being a shining star in her own right.

And then Kara Zor El’s pod crashes into earth and an alien child crashes into their lives.

Alex is thirteen when she abruptly finds herself a supporting character in her own story.

Suddenly being made of starstuff didn’t seem so special, carbon and nitrogen, iron and calcium elements that couldn’t exist without the explosion of some distant star. The scope was incredible but the elements common, every human was technically made of stardust.

How could that compare to a girl who came from the stars themselves with the powers of a god from her father’s stories...

 

**************************

 

When Alex spent years begging her parents for a puppy this was not at all what she had in mind but she really can’t do anything to stop the comparison. Especially at the moment with the young Kryptonian cowered underneath the kitchen table terrified of the popcorn maker. The situation eerily similar to the last time they had a thunderstorm and Vicky’s dog Bowser hid under the couch.

Alex doesn’t think her mom would appreciate her trying to lure Kara out with bacon even though Alex is ninety-five percent certain it would work.

Alex is trying to be gracious about the entire situation she really is. Kara’s not terrible, a little clingy and kind of annoying but then the girl did lose her entire world in the most literal sense.

Not even that knowledge in the back of Alex’s head can just stop the resentment from bubbling up during the rough adjustment from only child for more than a decade to big sister over night.

She feels so lost because she isn’t used to sharing the spotlight let alone being kicked off the stage entirely.

Alex is struggling. Her teenage hormones are running rampant and knowing the biological process and hormones responsible do absolutely nothing to help cope with the changes.

Her mother is coming down harder on her than ever at a time when her dad isn’t always able to run his customary set of interference. Her mother's usual 'I just want what's best for you' critiques and judgments on Alex’s academics, her career trajectory, her personal life choices shift until the focus is on Kara.

Somehow her mother manages to make every single criticism about Alex relate back to Kara and if that’s not enough everything is now how Alex needs to look out for Kara and hang out with Kara and help Kara, Kara, _Kara_.

It doesn’t help that Vicky’s been growing closer to her soulmate while Alex’s is still nowhere to be found so to speak or that it both of those things bother her more than she wants to admit.

Kara doesn’t know anything about soulmates, the endless questions about them, about everything constantly, fray at Alex’s nerves. Kara doesn’t even know how to act like she’s from earth because everything she knows about her new planet translates like a subpar nature documentary.

On top of everything it's driving Alex insane that she doesn’t know why her lips keep randomly getting tingly for no goddamn apparent reason. Sometimes she toys with penning the question on her skin but she prefers to just not think about it.

As someone who loved learning as much as Alex did school had always been enjoyable and it was even a reprieve when her mother became unbearable but the pressure to do well kept her away from the water.

When she was younger Alex had never cared much what people thought of her, she knew she was always a little strange, a little out of step with other kids her age. She had decided that high school was going to change all that.

Whether it was her mother finally chipping at her a bit too hard or wanting to be as perfect as Vicky or just trying to chase the elusive feeling of ‘normal’ didn’t matter as much as the outcome.

Alex decided that high school would be a time for reinvention, she would be normal. No, she would be cool and when Alex Danvers set her mind to something...

It worked, she wasn’t top of the food chain but she did alright as a freshman. She and Vicky slid effortlessly into the fringes of popularity. They had a group of friends who had upperclassmen connections that regularly got them invites to events reserved for ‘the popular kids’.

School went from a pleasant enough respite to a downright sanctuary and takes a turn away from all that just as quickly because nothing in her life is sacred after Kara’s arrival.

Her new sister who always seems to be a step behind her like an infuriating shadow she can’t shake, who won’t stop embarrassing Alex in front of her friends.

Kara who was undeniably  _weird_ in a way that kids noticed and wouldn’t hesitate to ridicule.

At first, Alex just tried ignoring Kara and when that didn’t work she figured they could at least manage her strangeness, not even remotely being able to conceive of stepping up completely to own the weird and her new sister.

Alex tries so hard to force Kara into just being normal so things wouldn’t need to change any more that they already had.  

The first time Alex realizes maybe doing things for herself just isn’t an option any more is after she accepts Rick’s invite to Swan Beach. Kara’s freakout had started drawing attention so there may have been a little more venom in Alex’s voice than warranted when Alex hedges, really wanting to go but not seeing how because she’s supposed to hang out with ‘ _her’_.

“So bring her.” and Alex thinks what’s the worst that can happen, thinks maybe just maybe she can keep some semblance of her social life intact. It ends...badly, for the first time but certainly not the last.

And of course it’s all her fault, not Kara’s, never Kara’s.

It’s Alex who should've known better. Alex who should have prevented it. Alex who shouldn’t have gotten them both in the situation to begin with. She tunes her mother out mid-tirade, fingers unconsciously digging into her stitches.

Eliza shows no signs of running out of steam anytime soon but all Alex can see is _her_ dad outside comforting Kara while she gets read the riot act.

Alex vows then and there to not let some alien brat who has her parents wrapped around her finger dictate how she has to live her life. The girl has literal superpowers, it isn’t as if Kara can’t protect herself.

She doesn’t _need_ Alex and Alex doesn’t _want_ her.

That all goes to hell the first time she catches some stupid eighth grader picking on Kara. People weren’t quick to forget her heroic yet fishy rescue and whispers had started about Kara killing her own parents in the 'fire' that claimed their lives and left her as the only survivor.

Alex can see how broken Kara is in that moment. Suddenly understands that her powers mean she’s not able to defend herself even if she were so inclined and Alex sees red.

The boy never saw the elbow flying at his face and then he saw nothing at all for a while because Alex’s blow knocks him out.

Alex stands defiant as she’s hauled to principal’s office. She might have gotten away without suspension if she managed to refrain from kicking his unconscious body, loudly swearing that no one got to mess with her kid sister.

The smile on Kara’s face is worth it though.  

Her mother who had been so adamantly telling Alex she needed to protect Kara is apoplectic when she comes to pick Alex up from school.

She can’t _win_ with her mom, never even expected to so it’s the disappointment in her dad’s eyes that hurts so much worse.

Alex throws herself into a proper teen angst punk rebellion. Complete with the clothes, hair, music and attitude. The only time the latter lifts is with Kara as Alex helps her acclimate to this new planet she’s found herself on and even that’s not guaranteed.

Some nights they lie on the roof and look at stars, Kara grieves her family and her world. She shares every piece of it that she can with Alex desperate to keep the knowledge of an entire culture alive inside more than just her own head.

She mourns the life she was supposed to have had not only on Krypton but then on Earth, how she was supposed to raise her baby cousin according to the customs of their planet.

When Alex calms her down from a nightmare with a Kryptonian lullaby, holding her close and whispering ‘El Mayara’ once she’s breathing properly again,  Kara feels the tiniest piece of absolution in her chest.

Alex walks Kara to and from school and makes sure _everyone_ knows Kara Danvers is Alex Danvers’ little sister. It is quickly established that Alex Danvers is _not_ someone you wanna mess with.

Vicky helps Alex dye her hair purple with orange streaks and helps her fill in the spots on her arms she can’t quite reach as she covers herself in ink.

Alex has never gone out her way to cover-up her her arms, preferring to have easier access to jot down whatever she needs to but with her new fashion sense she showcases them.

Kara is fascinated by both Alex’s hair and her skin. They dye the tips of Kara’s hair bubblegum pink to Kara’s absolute delight.

It’s well worth the two hour lecture Alex has to endure from her mother. She savors the twitch in her mother’s eye as she perfects her blank face. She stomps upstairs when it’s over, collapsing onto her bed and blasting her music to drown out her mother’s voice still in her head.

She can’t remember the last time Eliza said something to her that wasn’t laced in passive aggression or outright antagonism.

The first time her mother yelled at her for that godawful screeching coming from her room she brought Kara’s super hearing into it and Alex felt bad enough to play her music a little less loudly.

She doesn’t want to hurt Kara but after enough eavesdropped conversations between her and Vicky and accidental but no less awkward questions in front of her mom Alex doesn’t feel quite as bad about it.

By the fifth time her mother screams at her, she’s given Kara ear plugs she’d tinkered with to actually repel the sound waves and blasts the music even louder to annoy Eliza.

And if maybe there’s something underneath ‘all that godawful screeching’ her mother likes to complain about that makes her feel a little less alone she’s not about to admit it.

Her father’s around less and less, some new job he simply couldn’t turn down occupying his time. He tries to set aside at least one night a week for him and Alex though sometimes it’s more like every two weeks, three if she’s lucky.

They take his set of paints down to the beach and talk about everything he’s missed as he transforms Alex’s arms into works of art. When the paint dries sometimes Alex will rest her head on his chest and point to a constellation and she’ll drift to sleep listening stories that stirred memories of a simpler time.

One where she had, for instance her own damn room.

Alex had been over sharing a room with her new alien sister before she even started. She fought tooth and nail against it in the beginning to no avail. She understood on some level Kara had been alone in a pod for over two decades whether or not she remembered it, she had sensory issues and was grieving. It's better for her not to be alone right now her parents told her.

So yea Alex got it but that didn't mean she wanted to share her space any more than she had before. They managed well enough but Alex was determined not to make this into a permanent situation.

A year passed and Kara settled. Eliza and Jeremiah were going to be gone over night leaving Alex in charge and well Alex saw her opening and took it.

She convinced Kara to use her super strength to help her rearrange the attic and carry all of Alex's furniture up the stairs. Alex had to say she was actually pretty impressed with their handiwork and she bought Kara three extra pizzas and two extra orders of potstickers with her own money in thanks.

Their parents were significantly less impressed with their daughters' feat. 

Eliza looked furious enough to pop a blood vessel as she gave Alex a dressing down of epic proportions. Jeremiah has to calm her down before she hurts herself (or says something she can't take back) and she reluctantly leaves to go lie down with a parting, "This discussion is not over Alexandra."

Alex barely flinched throughout her mother's entire tirade but one look into dad's tired, disappointed eyes makes Alex feel worse than all her mother's yelling and barbed comments ever could.

Jeremiah sighs but wraps an arm around her shoulders. His voice gentle but firm, "You can't just do whatever you want champ, actions have consequences. Look I have to go but we will be talking about this when I get back."

And then Alex’s dad is gone before they ever get to have that conversation. Not just away from home or off on a business trip.

Gone.

Dead. Her father is dead.

They get the news and all Alex hears is white noise. 

A Plane Crash. The world moves in slow motion.

All she can think is actions have consequences. 

Alex isn’t able to catch her mom as Eliza falls to her knees, anguished sobs ripped from her throat and Kara’s grip on the wall causes the plaster to crumble as she struggles to draw in a breath.

Any person at all after the loss of an entire world is one too many.

Her mother just lost her bashert.

The first tears that slipped down Alex’s cheeks without permission slow and stop altogether.

The world speeds up. Faster and faster. The next few days are a blur.

Alex is a rock, she makes most of the funeral arrangements herself.  She supports Eliza when her knees threaten to buckle all over again and holds Kara until her own ribs become bruised.

She only lets the tears fall when she’s on her surfboard until it becomes rarer and rarer for her to be able to go at all.

Eliza throws herself into work and most of caring for Kara falls on Alex’s shoulders. No matter how much Alex tries she can’t seem to get anything right. Her fights with Eliza become explosive.

She ends up storming out of the house more often than not. To the beach or to Vicky’s. She wishes more than anything that her dad was still around because he always softened Eliza’s harsher edges.

Alex is barely keeping her head above water between pressure from Eliza and needing to protect Kara. She’s been fighting with Vicky and struggling with school for the first time ever, because Eliza pulled strings to get her into _more_ more advanced classes and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to read everything she needs to read or attend practices for the softball and field hockey that’ll look good on her college resume or run the clubs she’s president of because leadership is also important to display for the ivy leagues.

Which is how she found herself in this fucking predicament, bleeding from self-inflicted wounds in her bathtub and more importantly having caught the attention of her soulmate for the first time in nearly a decade.

She’s panicking because she just wanted to be in control of one single thing in her own damn life. The bloody words she traced were absentminded. This wasn’t supposed to be a cry for help. It was just supposed to take the edge off. No one was ever supposed to know and she needs to fix this but all she ends up doing is rambling.

_Ducky?!Omg I’m so sorry i didn’t think, i’m not sure what i thought but you haven’t responded since we were kids and I wasn’t really thinking at all truthfully I certainly never meant for you to see. I’m so sorry._

She’s not sure what she’s expecting when her soulmate’s response appears or if she even expected one at all but the offer surprises her.

_Hey it’s alright there’s no need to apologize to me. Do you wanna um talk about it?_

Does she want to talk about it?

Where would she even start? And how can she begin to pen the emotional turmoil that led to their first actual communication in years all because she did something so _stupid_ in desperation. It’s just. There’s so _much_ most of which never made it onto her skin not the least of which is her dad’s death. Then there’s mother’s expectations and her miracle of a sister and her gradually disappearing best friend, there’s the burden to be perfect and just how thin she’s stretched and the fact that she just feels so _different_ from everyone else but she doesn’t know _why._

_I mean you don’t have to...I just_

Alex realizes she must have been lost in her head for a while. She also realizes that if she does take her soulmate up on the offer then she has to break the news about Jeremiah.

She isn’t sure if she can do that.

_I’m sorry mayb-_

Alex cuts off the whatever it is her soulmate is sorry for because if she doesn’t get it out now, she probably never will

_I guess for starters you should know…..fuck I don’t... this is…...my no...its ...Jeremiah is dead...he.. last year. It was plane crash. I didn’t know how to or if you would even see I couldn’t write it I don’t think even if I wanted to but yeah..I’m sorry I.. he um cared a lot about you, ya know._

It feels important to add that last part. Thinking about how there were still snapshots of her soulmate’s childhood drawings hung up in her dad’s old studio.

Alex has felt a lot of things over the years when it came to her bashert but she never held a grudge for the radio silence. Jeremiah had everything to do with that. Alex believed in soulmates, believed in that connection but she never believed her soulmate _owed_ her anything in return.

So it hurt and she worried over the silence but she was never really angry. She wishes with her whole heart it hadn’t taken all of this to reopen their line of communication. Wishes her dad was still around so he would know her soulmate was alright after all the nights they spent worrying together.

_Alex I’m so sorry I had_

Maggie doesn’t want to say she had no idea because she hasn’t forgotten that day it felt her heart was being torn out of her chest. The timeline fits and the reality of it hits her like a meteorite. Jeremiah was gone. No, he wasn’t gone. Her own father was gone. Jeremiah was dead. She had spent so long running from the comparisons… she isn’t prepared for the wave of grief that hits her.

Jeremiah was gone. No, he wasn’t gone. Her own father was gone. Jeremiah was dead. She had spent so long running from the comparisons… she isn’t prepared for the wave of grief that hits her.

No, he wasn’t gone. Her own father was gone. Jeremiah was dead. She had spent so long running from the comparisons… she isn’t prepared for the wave of grief that hits her.

This wasn’t about her though. This was about her soulmate. And fuck what was she supposed to say. There wasn’t anything that didn’t seem trite or hollow. She feels so guilty for not reaching out that night over a year ago.

_I didn’t know. I’m not sure what to say. He was an amazing person. I know I never met him but I cared a lot about him too and I’m sorry I never got the chance to tell him. I’m so sorry I wasn’t….I’m sorry I let you go through that alone_

For the first time in a long time Alex doesn’t fight to keep her tears from falling.

_You couldn’t have known. It’s been hard but I’m not completely alone, I have my sister.Tragedy makes the heart grow fonder or something_

_The new ink.._

Alex was a little surprised by Maggie’s not incorrect leap.

She remembers the day after the funeral, remembers going back downstairs to dispose of the barely touched dinner she had been trying to coax her mom into eating. She remembers the way her heart leapt into her throat and the buzz in her blood at the crash that sounded from her father’s studio accompanied by Kara’s poorly muffled sobs.

Alex doesn't remember dropping the plate or running so hard she catches her hip on the doorknob bad enough to bruise. She certainly remembers her mother’s lecture about the broken dish the next day though. None of that matters at all when she stumbles into the room to find a whimpering Kara surrounded by broken canvases.

“Oh, Kara.” Alex doesn’t hesitate to sink to her knees and draw her sister into a hug. She whispers broken Kryptonian as she strokes Kara’s hair until the girl settles.

“I’m sorry, Alex. I just wanted to feel closer to him” Alex looks around at the open paint and mangled paint brushes amidst the busted canvases. Jeremiah had been teaching Kara art ever since she came to live with them in order to help her focus and learn to control her powers. Kara took to it much better than Alex ever had.

They started off with drawing which Kara found she had a knack for. She loved being able to capture much of Krypton in something more concrete than memory. Before long she carried around a sketchbook with her most of the time, so Jeremiah moved onto other endeavors in the studio itself.

They threw pottery and delved into metal work, there was even an eventful candle making session the whole family joined in on making sure to snap plenty of pictures to send to Jeremiah's relatives.

They had just been about to start on painting before his last business trip ended in tragedy.

“But I keep ruining everything.” Alex hated the anguish in Kara’s voice.

“Hey. it’s alright you didn’t ruin anything.” Alex reassures, ignoring Kara’s plaintive brow furrow as she glances around at the destruction they’re seated in the middle of.

“Nothing that matters.” Alex amends, sifting through the mess in search of a viable paintbrush.

“Aha.” Alex finds one and clears away some of the clutter, setting up a few colors on a palette. “Here.”

Kara stares at the paintbrush in Alex’s outstretched hand but doesn’t move to grab it. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand, it’s a paintbrush. You paint with it.”

“Allleeeex. I thought you could see it isn’t exactly working.”

“Yes but you are going to try it again with some higher stakes.”

“What—” She’s cut off by Alex rolling up her sleeve and shifting sideways so her arm is within easy reach of Kara.

“Try it again but on my arm-  Alex takes a deep breath looking right into Kara’s eyes, forcing down tears as she adds. “like dad used to do.”

Kara visibly startles “Alex are you crazy, do you not see all the damage—that’s canvas you’d end up with a paint brush _shishka bobed through your arm_.”

“So I call Vicky and she drives us to the hospital where they’ll remove it, no harm, no foul. Also I know you’re a fan of kebabs but that’s not really how you would—”

“You know what I meant, Alex.”

“Kara I trust you. I know that you can do this, you just need a little more incentive to maintain control so go on. You won’t hurt me.”

“That’s what you said when I got stuck on the jungle gym and you told me to fall and that you’d catch me.”

“And I did catch you.”

“Yeah and you got a concussion.”

“I was fine.”

“What about the time I dislocated your shoulder because I pulled too hard in my excitement over that bandit puppy.”

“I was able to pop it back in myself and they’re called raccoons, Kara.”

“But then it attacked you when you tried to get me to put it down.”

“Okay that wasn’t _fun_ but I already got my rabies shot and I mean it was kind of cute when it wasn’t mauling me.”

“Well what about—”

“Kara you were still learning to control your powers. You still are and those were all accidents of which admittedly there have been a lot, but I’ve managed just fine and you’ve come a long way. I believe in you Kara. I know you can do it so go ahead, try.”

Kara was still hesitant but she trusted Alex more than anyone on this new planet. Alex did not end up needing that trip to the emergency room and a new tradition was born.

At the end of each night Alex would throw on a tank top and Kara would gather her paint or whatever medium she felt like experimenting with that day. At first they exclusively used Jeremiah's studio but eventually they migrated.They would sit together in one of their rooms, or their spot on the roof, sometimes on really hard days they would go down to the beach.

Kara would decorate Alex’s skin with visual accounts of all that she was learning about her new home and memories of her old one.

Alex preferred the landscapes, skylines and animals of Kara’s first home, and of the numerous other planets she’d visited on diplomatic missions with her mother or on research trips accompanying her father.

Incredible sights that were more remarkable than any big budget sci-fi blockbuster could fathom because they were _real_ actual places, nevermind that Alex would never get to visit them.

It was enough to know that somewhere there were fields made of what looked like clouds and breathable underwater metropoli, entire worlds where everything was glow-in-the-dark and one populated entirely with miniature fauna.  

Kara reverently painted the Fire Falls and the Jewel Mountains, the Rainbow Canyon and the Scarlet Jungles of Krypton. Through her tears, it's less obvious how no earthly medium could ever quite capture their true essence.

Maggie would later mention how she like the winged dinosaurlike creatures Kara sometimes drew and Kara would smile sadly because Maggie had no way of knowing the snagriff was just one more piece of home Kara would never again see for real. 

Kara painted and she talked until her voice was hoarse and Alex listened and asked nerdy questions. When the moments felt right Alex interjected Jeremiah’s stories in between.

They created a bubble where Kara didn’t have to hide who she was and Alex could worry just that little bit less about protecting her. Where Kara could mourn and begin to heal and maybe Alex could pretend she was doing the same.

It was also a way for both of them to feel connected to Jeremiah and it only strengthened their bond as sisters.

_Yea she is actually the one responsible for the ‘new ink’_

Kara had asked a lot about soulmates, the concept foreign to her before Earth. She was curious about Alex always writing on herself and endlessly fascinated by watching Jeremiah draw something only to see it appear on Eliza as well.

_Well she’s really good_

That brought a small smile to Alex’s face. Kara fretted sometimes over Alex’s silent soulmate and the abundance of marks she contributed to Alex’s body and the soulmate by proxy. Alex knew she would be ecstatic to hear about the compliment.  

_I’ll tell her you said so and um I wanted to...that is.. I don’t usually do that…. with the...blood I mean . It’s not like a habit or anything you don’t have to worry. I just my birthday’s tomorrow sweet 16 and it’ll be the first without my dad and it’s my bff’s bday too but umm she’s spending it with her soulmate and I got into a fight with my mom. And i just felt a bit like everything was crashing and i had no control or anyway sorry for worrying you or whatever and like dumping all this on you which wow its a lot i should just...stop_

Maggie looks down at the litany of words and her heart breaks a little.

Evidently not believing in soulmates did not make her immune to caring about this girl she was connected to by a _meaningless fluke of nature (_ the self-preserving part of her brain forcefully reminds her).

She feels a little tug in her chest and swears she can almost hear Lucy’s voice saying ‘Jesus cowgirl comfort her, you useless lesbian’

It makes the ache in her heart stronger and a weird vibe thrums alongside it but it gets lost overwhelming swell of emotions that she buries to focus.  

_You don’t need to keep apologizing. I know I haven't been ‘around’ but I promise I haven’t become judgmental over the years. Sounds like you got a lot going on. I’m here if you want to vent_

That was apparently Alex’s cue to start crying again because wow her soulmate was actually being incredibly sweet considering the years since they last spoke rendered them virtual strangers. It seems she’s waited too long to respond again because more words pop up.

_or oh oh I got this What’s the best way to talk to a Tyrannosaur?_

_Wait what are you_

_Long Distance!_

Alex sat blinking rather stupidly at her leg. Was….was her soulmate trying to cheer her up with terrible dinosaur jokes

_What do you call it when a dinosaur makes a goal with a soccer ball?_

_A dino-score!_

Alex felt a grin tugging at the corner of her lips despite her best efforts to remain stoic in the face of the rather awful jokes that wouldn’t have been out of place the last time she and soulmate spoke….when she was eight.

_Are you trying to cheer me up…. by making terrible dinosaur jokes?_

_Well ouch hit a soulmate where it hurts why don’t you. Ok how about this one.Why did the Archaeopteryx catch the worm?_

_Because it was an early bird!_

This time Alex couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her chest.

_Hey that one was actually pretty good. :) just maybe don’t quit your day job._

_Ha ha. So you wanna talk about this best friend drama or maybe your mom? I mean I could keep going with the excellent jokes I got material for days_

_That’s actually kind of concerning Ducky_

_Omg. I can’t believe I forgot you called me that_

_Well I mean I don’t exactly know your name….. So you hit a growth spurt yet or can you still not reach the top shelf shorty_

_You know I don’t remember you being this mean..._

_Must’ve been the rose colored glasses of your youth short stack._

_Seriously you know how to hit where it hurts I’ll have you know I’ve finally surpassed the 5ft mark_

_Wow impressive I can hear the NBA scouts clamoring in the distance_

The innocuous NBA jibe sends Maggie into a panic. She wasn’t sure if she was reading too much into or if it was a simple turn of phrase. She racks her brain for decade old memories trying to figure out if she ever offhandedly mentioned that she was, well a girl.

Maggie had no idea what the protocol was should she just tell Alex? Giving her real name was an option, unlike her soulmate, there wasn’t much mistaking Maggie for gender-neutrality. She went by Sawyer enough but that felt too much like intentional deceit.

Did it even matter? Particularly when Maggie didn’t even believe in soulmates...

Sticking to the childhood moniker Ducky seems like the safest option for the time being. Maggie tries not to think about how much this omitted truth still burns like a lie.

_Well I guess I have grown kind of fond of Ducky and don’t think I haven’t noticed your less than masterful attempts to dodge serious conversation I mean like I said you don’t have to talk about it.. So what do you ca—_

_Ok ok spare me any more dino jokes =P what do you want to know?_

_Whatever you wanna tell me_

_Ohhh smooth halfpint_

_That...I wasn’t_

_I know. I was kidding..sorry I’m just not great at this whole opening up thing. I guess the ‘easiest’ place to start would be my mom. She told me yesterday she’s attending a last minute conference this weekend._

_Wait on your birthday?!_

_Yeah. Honestly it’s not that big a deal we fight pretty much all the time anyway. Ever since we adopted my sister nothing I do is ever good enough besides I know big life events make her miss my dad even more than usual_

_Well I’m sure, but she’s your_ **_mom_ ** _and it’s your 16th birthday, you’ll be missing your dad just as much_

Alex couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath or the renewed tears and she knew her next words were kind of shaky.

_Thank you_

Of course, Maggie noticed.

_Shit I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you_

_You didn’t. I’m just not used to….Vicky is my best friend, my only friend that I really_ **_talk_ ** _to ya know and things between us have been strained lately. There’s my sister but things have been really hard on her since we took her in. She’s….different and it’s not always easy for her. She’s also kind of like a giant puppy and it’s my job to protect her...and her relationship with my mom so I can’t really talk to her about. I’m just not used to someone being so willing to see my side of things I guess_

_Well that’s what I’m here for. How come things are strained with the bestie?_

Alex needed a minute to ponder that question cause honestly hell if she knew.

She met Vicky Donahue in the fourth grade and they became instant friends upon discovering they shared a birthday.  

In the years that followed the two were practically attached at the hip. If you were looking for one chances were you didn’t have to look farther than the other.

Night time and when Alex was surfing seemed to be the exceptions and even then most weekends (and the occasional school night) found them sleeping over the other’s house and Vicky could often be found cheering Alex on from the sand, occasionally getting in the water with her.

Vicky didn’t bail when things in Alex’s life got tougher either.

Vicky had been there when Kara first arrived, listening to Alex’s early frustration over her new sibling and she stood by Alex’s side sacrificing their paved climb up the social ladder to support Alex and by extension Kara. Vicky had been there as much as she could, as much as Alex would let her when Jeremiah died and was a refuge Alex fled to escape Hurricane Eliza.  

But then lately…..

_I’m not really sure I mean we’ve been getting into the stupidest fights over nothing lately...well except for today’s I guess_

_What happened today?_

_I mentioned we have the same birthday right well she’s been planning on officially meeting her soulmate on her 16th birthday for years so they can get married_

_Hold up. She wants to get married, at 16? That’s insane can she even do that?_

_Yup california doesn’t actually have a minimum age of requirement for marriage if you get parental and consent  and a court order but with the soulmate clause if you’re both 16 and can prove you’re soulmates you don’t need any other documents_

_That’s a little disturbing, so did you tell her it was I dumb idea? I would've told her it was a dumb idea._

_Nah she had already been planning it before we met and we met when we were like 9 so it’s not like I wasn’t expecting it, it’s just so much changed for me these last few years I ended up with a sister and my dad died and 16 is a big birthday and it just sucks it’ll be the first without him and I was kind of hoping she’d spend it with me which is stupid ya know because soulmate trumps best friend..._

_That’s not stupid Alex, getting married at 16 is stupid. So you’re saying the bad fight was because you wanted to celebrate your 16th bday with your best friend  but it’s her bday too and she’d rather get married? Cause no offense that’s kind of messed up but i dont get it, sounds like you guys are close_

_We are. I mean we’re best friends. She’s amazing and smart and beautiful. She’s captain of the field hockey team and one of the best forwards we have, she’s great with animals and wants to be a vet. She’s loyal and she’s kind and she’s always always been there for me_

A few minutes pass and Maggie wonders if that’s her cue to say something. She probably shouldn’t because it’s taking a considerable amount of willpower to not comment on just how fucking gay her soulmate’s last paragraph about her _friend_ was. She caves when a few more minutes pass by in ‘silence’

_Is it time for more dino jokes cause I promise I can deliver_

_And here I thought I was in the clear, sorry I guess I’m still processing some of the words thrown around during the fight and I don’t know I might be paranoid but I don’t think Vicky’s soulmate likes me very much. I think maybe that’s really why we fought_

If Alex casually talked about Vicky that way to other people Maggie very much doubted it was paranoia on Alex’s part that her _friend’s_ soulmate didn’t like her.

_Okay well what happened to make you think that_

_The fights we’ve had before have always been pretty stupid, like over changing our take-out plans because Liam [the soulmate] is getting pizza and it’d be cute to ‘share’ the experience , music on the ride to school, running late to practice you know little things_

 Truth was before the last month or so they hardly fought about anything.

  _but well I asked her about spending tomorrow together. Honestly I shouldn’t have I know how long she’s been making these plans but I guess some part of me thought...it doesn’t matter. She lost it, went off on me accused me of being jealous lately and that if i couldn’t have a relationship with my soulmate I didn’t want her to have one with hers either._

_Alex_

_No, it’s okay really. I mean it was ridiculous_ **_because_ ** _Vicky knows how I feel about well...you. I never blamed you for what is was worth, I was worried, kinda sad but I’m not like mad or anything just so you know and you don’t have to say anything_

Maggie wasn’t sure she could if she tried. Luckily it seemed like Alex had plenty more to say.

_Anyway it hasn’t been an issue until recently when they started cementing their plans to meet. I figure it has to be Liam._

Alex had scarcely believed the words coming out of her best friend’s mouth because Vicky knew Alex had made peace with the whole silent soulmate thing. She still worried about hers but she wasn’t jealous of Vicky’s soulmate. In all honesty she really though Vicky deserved better. Liam was a bit of jackass in Alex’s opinion.

_He’s just fuck I can barely stand him and I haven’t even met him obviously. Well I mean technically I’ve ‘known’ him as long as I’ve know Vicky so we’ve ‘talked’ Plus Vicky got a webcam so I’ve ‘met’ him. I mean they’re soulmates so it’s not really ‘okay’ to say or whatever but Vicky deserves better than him ugh he just thinks he’s so much better than everyone else and his hair is kind of stupid and_

Maggie watches with a raised eyebrow as Alex continues to lay into this Liam guy but figures now would not be the ideal time to point out Alex actually does seem kind of jealous..just not of Vicky _having_ a soulmate.

_So been holding all that in long?_

_Sorry, I guess I have, it’s not exactly kosher to disapprove of your best friend’s soulmate._

_Well I promise I won’t tell anyone_

_My hero (that’s a heavy dose of sarcasm in case you couldn’t pick it up in writing)_

_Seriously so much meaner in your old age, I think I can manage to pick up on your ‘textual nuances’ after all this time_

_Whatever you say_

Alex may not have held any ill will towards her soulmate for their disappearing act per say but she wasn’t about to go and admit that they’d been pretty much perfect for the entirety of the admittedly short but emotionally charged conversation thus far.

 _The skepticism i’m sensing? Not cool._ _So what kind of dinosaur can you ride in a rodeo? A bronco-saurus!_

 _Well_   _f_ _uck_ is the only coherent thought in Alex’s head because she finds herself kind of falling in love with her soulmate.

A few more terrible dinosaur jokes give way anecdotes about their weeks until suddenly mid-sentence the writing breaks off and—

_HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!_

Emerges with a few balloons and confetti doodled around for good measure. Alex glances at the clock startled to realize it’s exactly midnight and they had been talking for hours.

They chat a little longer and Alex isn’t sure which of them crashes first or what time she officially loses the battle for sleep, drifting off with her pen still clutched in her hand.

When she wakes up from a surprisingly restful sleep it’s to a bouncing Kryptonian singing intentionally off-key and a slightly burnt but gorgeously decorated birthday cake.

“I made it myself!”

Alex can’t help but laugh, “I can tell, Kar.”

“And since Eliza’s not here we can eat it for breakfast!” Kara’s enthusiasm is infectious and Alex feels a little guilty because honestly she’s happy that Eliza isn’t here. Eating cake with Kara for breakfast makes for an infinitely better birthday than whatever might have happened had Eliza been present.

They settle around the kitchen island with two forks not even bothering to pretend like plates were a part of their plans. They only stop for a brief minute to take some pictures, in which both of them ended up with icing smeared across their grinning faces before digging into the cake.

“What’dya say we pack a huge picnic basket and spend the day catching some waves? And then we can come back here order an obscene amount of pizza with the guilt money mom left and marathon _Star Wars_. Sound like a plan?” Alex asks, impressively intelligible around a mouthful of cake.  Before realizing Kara doesn’t seem to be paying attention.

“Kara. Kaarrraaaa. KARA!”  

Kara snaps out of her daze with an eloquent, “Huh?”

“What’s up? I was going over our plan for today.”

“Oh well it’s your birthday so whatever you want but uhm Alex, what’s up with your arm?”

Alex furrows her eyebrows having no idea what Kara is talking about until she looks down and—

“Alex are you okay? Why are you crying?” Alex doesn’t hear her she’s too busy staring at her arm. She’s so used to pretty much always having them covered in ink that it hadn't even registered that she fell asleep last night with bare arms and woke up with-

The upper part is a rendering of the night sky and Alex can’t contain the sob because the stars spell out _Happy Birthday, Champ._ The sky breaks into a beautiful horizon further down and then into some impressively realistic ocean waves.

She reaches out for Kara’s hand as a teary laugh escapes because on the waves are two surfboards, seated on one is bullfrog with a telescope, a cartoon rendering of ducky the perched on top and on the other is ‘champ’ the lake monster with its fins wrapped around a puppy.

White writing stands out against the blue waves on her inner forearm.

_Happy Sweet 16 Alex, I know today will be hard but I have no doubt your dad would want you to have the best birthday possible. Sending you the best wishes - your Ducky._

“Alex?”

Alex wipes the tears from her eyes, “Sorry I’m okay, it’s from my soulmate.” Alex explains holding out her arm so Kara can get a closer look.

Kara gets excited, “I thought you guys didn’t talk.”

“We haven’t for a really long time, until last night.”

“Alex that’s so great.” Alex can’t help but laugh again because Kara is floating off the floor a little.

“Kara relax you’re getting airborne.”

“Oops.” Kara waits til her feet land back on solid ground before gently grabbing Alex’s arm for closer inspection. “I don’t understand.” Alex laughs at Kara’s scrunched up nose as she tries to puzzle out the drawing on Alex’s arm.

“Well I think the stars are pretty self-explanatory and the surfboards.”

“Well yeah, but what the heck is on the surfboards.”

“Oooh language Kara.” It feels good to laugh this much Alex has to admit as she watches Kara’s eyes narrow. “Okay you know how dad always called me champ?” Alex’s throat still tightens painfully at the past tense and she unconsciously traces over the nickname on her arm.

“Well when we were kids my soulmate was a little obsessed with dinosaurs,” Alex thinks about all the dino jokes from last night, “still seems kinda fond of 'em actually, anyway there are a lot of urban legends about lake monsters and some people believe they’re actually members of water dinosaur species that survived.”

“Your soulmate thinks that dinosaurs aren’t extinct and live in lakes?” Kara asks skeptically.

“No,” Alex can’t help but laugh, “my soulmate found out about dad calling me champ and associated it with the legend surrounding the Lake Champlain lake monster ‘Champ’. He’d tease me about not needing a surfboard if I was a sea monster or call me Champy or Nessie sometimes”

“That doesn’t seem very romantic.”

“We were little kids, Kara, besides I don’t know my soulmate’s name so I always called him Ducky after the Saurolophus character from _The Land Before Time_. That’s the cartoon Ducky sitting on the telescope which is probably there because dad and I helped him build one from scratch when we were little and we’d all look at the stars ‘together’. It was cute I used to get doodles of Ducky riding on ‘Champ’s’ head or them stargazing together.”

“I guess that is kind of cute, so then how come the...lake monster isn’t hugging Ducky?”

“Well I’m pretty sure the puppy is supposed to be _you_.” Alex responds playfully poking Kara in the side.

“Me? How..”

“I talked about you last night doofus. My soulmate likes your art by the way, says you’re really good”

“Really?” Alex couldn’t keep the smile from her own face as Kara started beaming despite her wide surprised eyes.

“Yup apparently he ripped all the sleeves off his shirts to show it off.”

“That’s so cool!” Kara bounced a little in excitement but Alex was quick to cut off any bright notions about her own clothes.

Alex owned a few articles of artfully ripped up clothing including a few sleeveless tops that hadn’t always been that way. Eliza was less than pleased and Alex didn’t even want to entertain her reaction if Kara were to follow suit.

“Yea, don’t go getting any ideas mom would murder me but at least you don’t have to worry about my soulmate’s rection. I know that bothered you sometimes.”

Kara pouted for a moment but relented at the tiny weight of concern being lifted from her chest,  “So that leaves the frog.”

“Well you remember the stories about how my dad got his name?”

“Oh the song! Jerimiah was a bullfrog!” The sisters looked at each other for a minute before bursting out into song.

“Joy to the world, all the boys and girls, Joy to the world, Joy to you and me.” They finish the song in a fit of giggles and Alex realizes it was the first time since her dad died that the song brought her more sweet memories than bitter.

She’s drawn out of her musings by Kara suddenly sniffling.

Alex barely has time to work herself up to concerned before ending up with an armful of overdramatic alien sibling blubbering, “It’s just so sweet.”

“There?There?” Alex all but mocks as she awkwardly pats Kara on the head. After a few minutes where Kara composes herself Alex manages to untangle herself from Kara’s iron grip, shooing her out of the kitchen.

“Alright I think I’m feeling a _Land Before Time/Jurassic Park/Loch Ness_ horror movie marathon now instead of _Star Wars_ but first those waves aren’t gonna ride themselves, c’mon Marvin.”

“Ugh you know I’m not a martian Alex!” Kara complained, already busy trying to psych herself up for Alex’s scary movie preferences. She repeated ‘it’s Alex’s birthday’ in her head like a mantra and consoles herself that at least one of them will be a cartoon.

“Yeah. yeah last one to the beach has to come back up here for the food!” Alex doesn’t even care Kara only let her win because it’s her birthday.

Alex is still too overcome to pen anything more than a heartfelt _Thank You_ before getting in the water. She senses that her soulmate gets it anyway. The water is cool but she feels like the _Anytime Alex_ is burning just underneath her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to stop editing this a bunch of times because particularly in light of the most recent episode I gave myself too many Jeremiah feels....I was so dumb for getting myself so attached to my version tbh
> 
> Again thank you all so frakkin' much for all the comments, I'm really rather terrible at being a person and responding to them but I read them all ~~several dozen times~~ and they just make me so fucking happy and def help me push through bouts of writer's block when it kicks in. 
> 
> Speaking of which (the comments not the writer's block) a few people were curious about Lucy and without giving anything away I will say that she did have the marks when she was little but stopped getting them for reasons that will explained in probably chapter 4(there might be 5 chps total now so we'll see) and that she has zero idea who Maggie is in that respect and is not 'technically' actively lying about anything soulmate related. She's just opting to give the facts as they are in her present reality vs. her whole backstory.
> 
> The next chapter should be bringing us concurrent with season 2. If the ending does what I want it to do, not entirely sure when that'll be up but I will do my best to not make it so long!
> 
> I am honestly loving this story and playing in this sandbox so very much so I genuinely hope that you guys are enjoying it as well, [change-the-rules](http://change-the-rules.tumblr.com/). is where you can find me.
> 
> I don't bite without consent so don't hesitate to stop on by to flail about femslash or for any other reasons.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay the very first thing I have to do is say thank you, like the amount love ya'll have shown this fic and me has just blown me completely away. I don't even have words to encompass the depth of my gratitude. So just from the bottom of my heart thank you all! 
> 
> Secondly, I am so sorry it took me this long to update, I started working a new job with insane hours and no set schedule, My laptop broke and I'm in process of moving plus ya know just RL stuff in general. Basically, the bulk of this was written on the subway using google docs without which this fic would not have been possible. 
> 
> Also what was intended to be Chapter 3 got wildly out of hand and ended up at 51k so needless to say I needed to break it up some. So without further ado enjoy!

Alex isn’t sure what she expects after unexpectedly hearing from her soulmate after so long. She prepares herself for the possibility that it was a birthday miracle and her soulmate would subsequently go radio silent right after.

That’s not quite the way it happens.

It’s strange how seamlessly they transition into each other’s lives again. Good Morning messages, cute doodles, reminders of reminders that’ve been washed away.

They fall asleep talking about everything and nothing more often than not.

Alex is trying not to get too attached, shoving the intrusive thoughts like falling in love far into the back of her brain because they’re getting closer again. They’re older this time and it’s different but it’s good. Except—

Except she still doesn’t know why Ducky disappeared all those years ago, still feels like for all that they’re sharing there’s still something her soulmate is holding back.

Alex doesn’t even know his name.

Still.

It’s a strange thing to realize, all these years and only a nickname to identify her soulmate by. She can’t bring herself to herself to just ask outright. It seems off somehow after all this time.

Alex decides it doesn’t really matter because Ducky is being there for her and she might as well just go with it.

She and Vicky have been drifting even farther apart. Her once best friend went ahead with the marriage and sleepovers between them are a thing of the past. They barely hang out anymore outside of school and directives on the field during hockey practice see the most words spoken between them.

It hurts, feels like a betrayal in a way Ducky’s absence never did. Her soulmate to their credit listens attentively as Alex mourns, trying to heal what only one of them recognizes as a broken heart.

It’s strange adjusting to life without Vicky. Alex had become accustomed to her friend’s presence over the years.

It could be worse. Alex is involved in enough extracurriculars that she never has to eat lunch alone if she bothers with the cafeteria at all. She’s much more likely to skip eating altogether in favor of spending more time in the lab.

Alex has acquaintances, teammates, and co-members, it’s nowhere near the same deep connection she shared with her best friend but she has Kara now at least.

They aren’t nearly as close as she and Vicky were, not yet but Kara is someone in Alex’s corner even when Alex doesn’t want her there.

And when protecting her new sister gets too overwhelming or her arguments with Eliza too heated she has a soulmate to turn to who actually responds.    

Her soulmate doesn’t judge and always seems to know how to perfectly time their borderline inappropriate humor for maximum effect.

Alex tries her best to return the favor. It mostly results in Alex being an awkward mess but her soulmate doesn’t seem to mind.

Alex is not an unobservant person she learns to read in between the lines, decipher what her soulmate doesn’t say. She notices when a wisecrack has too much bite or an off-hand comment too much depth.

Of course, the most Ducky will cop to is still dealing with the bully problem which Alex finds out is the cause of the blood over the years.

She mentions it offhand to her mother and sees the flicker of relief before it melts into sadness but she’s old enough now to know what she was too young to know then about the fears her parents harbored when she started sporting so much blood that wasn't her own.

Alex recognizes her bashert is dealing with their share of issues too but not once does Alex feel less than for sharing about her own.

At least her soulmate has finally found some friends, though he’s a little tight-lipped about the particulars. Less so about the fact he needed to leave town limits in order to do it.

Ducky tells her about the Yamaha and the Triumph and the summer fix-up project directly inspired by the engine schematics Alex drafted onto their arms.

Alex remembers that day. Eliza had long since given up trying to stop that particular brand of father-daughter bonding and Jeremiah had decided she was finally old enough to learn how to ride herself.

Alex wanted to know everything about the mechanics of the bike before she tried her hand at controlling it, hence the diagrams.

Vicky was in awe because her own father had expressly forbidden his daughter from ‘ever getting on the back of some guy’s bike.’ Alex blushed and groaned when her dad tossed out that Alex wasn’t a guy with an exaggerated wink.  

Jeremiah knew as soon he put his daughter on the back of his bike when she was still a kid that he’d be teaching her to ride one day.

Not that it would hurt for Alex to know how to handle a motorcycle if she did get on the back of someone else’s but she had that sparkle whenever they rode and he seriously doubted his daughter would spend very much time on the back of anyone’s bike once she could drive her own.

Her soulmate also lets the name Lucy slip for the first time while talking about the bikes. Alex learns about the brash, fierce, clever girl who was her soulmate’s first real friend.

Alex infers the unspoken something more and pretends like it doesn’t feel like a knife to the gut. The pain and avoidance distract her from noticing that indefinable feeling of _something right_ that hovers just out of reach.

 

*************************************

                               

Alex notices the blood smeared under her nose while getting a post-practice snack from the fridge. The frequency of it had eased off a bit over time but there seemed a bit of an uptick around two years ago.

Now that she had somewhat of an explanation these days, they traded war stories along with the band-aid doodles Alex hadn’t quite grown out of bestowing.

_You’re bleeding again_

Alex receives a reply quicker than she thought she would.

_Took a soccer ball to the face_

_Uhuh well a quick sure blow to the temple can incapacitate a "soccer ball"....permanently_

_That’s a little worrying and also likely to end with me in prison_

_Fine guess that leaves out certain throat and sternum attacks too. Well if you can manage to hit the peroneal nerve (located at the front of the leg, just on the outside of the thigh. A spot approximately three inches above the knee), just right you can most likely cause your opponent's leg to collapse oh also pain and uh the radial (top of the forearm, just below the elbow) and median(inside of the forearm just at the base of the wrist. Aim for a spot just above the heel of the hand) nerves, good for excruciating pain and possible disarmament if you hit ‘em right._

_Damn and noted but this time it really was a soccer ball._

_Alright I guess I believe you._

_Well what about you don’t think I didn’t notice the blood on my knuckles yesterday_

_It wasn’t mine?_

_That’s my girl, people still giving K-pup trouble?_

Maggie cringes but it’s too late to do anything about the slightly possessive even if she hadn’t meant it that way term of endearment which she really hadn’t meant to let slip out at all. She’s still very much anti-soulmate it’s just she maybe sort of might be developing feelings for Alex which is a problem on account of Alex being hersoulmate.

The conundrum makes her head hurt and Maggie tries to focus, genuinely curious about how K(Alex seemed more guarded about her sister’s identity than her own and Maggie wasn’t sure whether it was intentional or subconscious) is doing. Maggie hadn’t quite figured out exactly what the girl’s deal was. Only that she was ‘different’ and had ‘trouble fitting in’ which damn could Maggie relate.

The fact that Alex fought tooth and nail to keep her odd adopted little sister safe did not help Maggie with her conflicting feelings for her ‘soulmate’.

_Yeah apparently enough people missed the memo despite only a quad separating the high school from the junior high that she was off limits if they didn’t want their asses beat by her big sister_

_Still this far into the school year?_

_They’re slow learners apparently but it’s nothing I can’t handle_

_I could always come teach them some midwestern manners_

Alex tries not get her hopes when her soulmate says things like that. It’s easy to forget sometimes. They share so much and she’s aware how badly her soulmate wants out of their narrow-minded small town but it’s not like they’ve made any plans.

Not when her bashert doesn’t _believe_ in soulmates.

It doesn’t keep Alex’s heart from fluttering in her chest and she’s still a little off kilter from the earlier ‘that’s my girl’.

It kind of makes her wants to stick her head into the sand outside and scream. Which is unpleasant as she can attest to from experience. Still, it would serve as the perfect distraction from her stupid awesome soulmate who she’s pretty much fallen for.

Her soulmate that just wants to be friends. Which is fine except for how Alex wants so much more than that.

She wants that can't eat-can’t sleep-reach for the stars-over the fence-world series kind of love….and that’s the last time she lets Kara pick the same movie for the fourth night in a row. Seriously she didn’t care how...good of an actress Kirstie Alley was there’s a limit.

Alex doesn’t just want that with just anyone either she wants it with her soulmate.

Alex opts to just let it go as she always does because well they’re _connected_ and ‘fate doesn’t make mistakes, sweetie'. So she figures it has to work itself out at some point.

 

**************************************** 

  

**_“_ ** **_Give me a shot to remember and you can take all the pain away from me. Your kiss and I will surrender. The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead.”_ **

 Alex bounces out of her bed as her alarm clock blares. She was already awake, too hyped to sleep. She leaves the music on letting it carry out through speakers as she rocks out while simultaneously getting dressed and ready for the day.

  **_“Stand up fucking tall. Don't let them see your back and take my fucking hand and never be afraid again… Trust, you said who put the words in your head. Oh how wrong we were to think that immortality meant never dying.”_ **

 Alex screamed along to the words, banging her head in time and only pausing to smear dark heavy makeup across her eyes in a full stripe to her hairline.

She was just accenting the black with a little bit of red when some fresh bright lettering on the back of her hand caught her attention.

_Uh Alex care to explain what the hell is on my face_

_Oh shit. sorry I forgot about that, make-up doesn’t usually show up really so_

_Alex there’s make-up then there’s THIS_

_Right I should have probably taken that into consideration. I’m going to an MCR concert tonight, I may have been a little overzealous in my excitement._

_It’s all good, just maybe a heads up next time would be nice._

_You got it, do you um do you need me to wash it off?_

_Nah don’t worry about it have fun at your concert later_

Alex shoots off a quick thanks and scurries over to fling her door open before Kara can accidentally knock a hole right through it.

Kara stands a little wide eyed taking in Alex’s appearance, “Uhm are you really going to school like that?”

“Ugh everyone’s a critic this morning. What’s wrong with it?”

“For starters, Eliza would kill you.”

“Well _Eliza’s_ not here is she?”

“I guess not.” Kara can’t help but sigh, there would be no getting through to Alex that way if she was referring to her mom as Eliza like _that._ She pursues a different train of thought instead of starting an argument.

“but what did you mean by—” Kara takes in the slightly guilty look on Alex’s face, “Wait did you not clear that,” She gestures at Alex’s face, “with your soulmate first, that’s so not cold Alex.”

Kara had grown fond Ducky since learning how much her sister’s soulmate appreciated her artistic endeavors. Sometimes their bond poked at the dark shadowy corners of Alex’s mind that housed lingering resentment for the alien interloper sharing her home but mostly she was ecstatic the two most important people in her life seemed to genuinely like each other.

“Cool Kara or chill maybe, not cold and I didn’t mean to, I was thinking of it like make-up not face paint! I forgot it could be...extreme enough to show up and I offered to wash it off after I realized but Ducky said it was _cool._ See that’s how you woul—”

“Whatever, Alex _you_ aren’t being very cool right now.”

“Oh really? Big talk twerp, you wanna walk to school today?” The end of the sentence floated up the stairs as Alex dashed for the door.

“Alllleeeex.” Kara whined but didn’t actually rush as she grabbed her backpack and snagged some breakfast.

Alex wasn’t actually going to make her walk and sure enough, when Kara opened the door Alex was sitting in the car with the stereo blasting munching on a pop tart.

“Get in the car, E.T. or we’re gunna be late.”

Kara rolls her eyes but hops in, opening the window to make the sound coming from the speakers a little less intense as they speed toward school.

**_“You'll never make me leave I wear this on my sleeve. You wanna follow something, Give me a better cause to lead. Just give me what I need. Give me a reason to believe.”_ **

 It takes two periods before Alex’s fashion choice gets her sent to the principal’s office.

She grumbles the entire way to the bathroom opting to rinse it off in lieu of detention. She hangs her headphones around her neck cranking up her music so the faint strains follow her to her destination.

**_“They're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books to make a citizen out of you because they sleep with a gun and keep an eye on you, son so they can watch all the things you do.”_ **

She scrubs at her face, annoyed that no one seems to get this stuff is so much easier to put on then it is to clean off. The music echoes off the walls and she wonders if just skipping the rest of the day would be worth the headache when her mom inevitably found out.

**_“They said all teenagers scare the living shit out of me.They could care less as long as someone'll bleed.So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me.”_ **

Alex glances down and curses suddenly wondering if she could have gotten away with lying that the make-up originated on her soulmate so technically there was nothing she could do, welp too late now.

_Losing the bandit look so soon? It was just starting to grow on me =P_

_Well good cause it’ll be back in a few hours. Administration made me wash it off._

_Wait you went to school like that? Wtf Alex, I’m sorry that’s kind of hilarious I assumed you had the day off or something_

_Wow first of all Rude. It is a look™ okay and second of all no ya know what that’s it, don’t hate if you can’t rock it half pint._

_Well technically thanks to you I can ‘rock’ it just fine. It’s just a bit more dramatic than my usual no make-up style is all thankyouverymuch_

_Fair enough and I am really sorry about earlier. It seriously didn’t occur to me until after you already commented that it would show up on you._

_Don’t worry about it. Besides the look on my ma‘s face was totally worth it._

Alex leaves the bathroom in a considerably better mood than the one she entered it in.

The rest of the day passes in a blur until this time it was Alex impatiently banging on her sister’s door, “Kara come on, move your tuches, let’s go. It’s over an hour drive to the venue I wanna make sure we have plenty of time.”

The door cracks open and Alex shoulders her way inside to find Kara fretting over the clothes in her closet. Alex tosses a black t-shirt in her general direction with a grin.

“Here you can borrow one of my band tees so you don’t stick out in your overabundance of pastels.”

Kara fumbles with the shirt twisting it around in her hands instead of putting it on. “Alex, I don’t think this is such a good idea. Eliza said— ”

“I don’t care what Eliza said, Kara. I bought these tickets over a year ago. I am NOT missing this concert. Mom could’ve come home from her stupid conference a day early or hell she didn’t have to go at all.”

She so rarely asked her mom for _anything_ these days but she had asked for this. She asked for this one thing for herself and the refusal burned molten in her veins because of it.

Alex purchased the tickets what seemed like a lifetime ago. She and Vicky planned on going together, their first official concert that wasn’t a festival.

Her dad was going to take them.

Now Jeremiah was dead and Vicky wasn’t her best friend anymore and Eliza was just too busy. Alex had _begged_ her mom to still be able to go to no avail but her mom wasn’t here to physically stop her so Alex had decided to hell with it.

Alex was starting to work herself up as she paced back and forth across the room.

“It shouldn’t even matter.I’m almost seventeen and there is no reason for me not to go to this concert just because she’s not home. Look if you wanna stay here then be my guest. I just thought it might be fun, concerts are a quintessential _human_ experience.”

“I’m pretty sure music is one of the few genuinely universal concepts. Plenty of planets hold performances very similar to what I’ve heard of Earth concerts…….and you were making a point...” Kara concludes once Alex’s raised eyebrow registers.

“C’mon, I mean I did go flying with you when you asked,” Alex cajoled.

“And we got in so much trouble Alex. _You_ got in so much trouble.”

It’s been long enough now that her mother’s recriminations from that night have faded.

As cutting as they were then, their impact has been dramatically lessened in the onslaught that has become near daily routine.

Now all Alex remembers about that night is _flying_.

She flew, freely and unrestrained in a way that less than a handful of people on earth had ever experienced and it was nothing short of amazing.

She would continue to be a little bitter she didn’t have superpowers of her own but for that one night, Kara wasn’t the only one who could touch the stars.

“It was worth it though wasn’t it.”

Kara observes the easy way Alex’s lips curl into a smile, how her eyes sparkle and her entire face softens in an all too rare show of genuine delight. If the memory of them flying could do that for Alex then...

“Yeah, I guess it was.” Kara tugs the borrowed shirt over her head. “Alright, I’m ready.”

Alex let’s out a whoop.

“Hold on just one—” She produces some eyeliner from one of her many pockets and lightly applies it after pushing up the frames of Kara’s glasses. “There.” Satisfied with her work she all but tugs Kara out of the room.

“Well come on then, let’s gooooooo.”

A few minutes later sees them settling in the car for the drive ahead, “Do we have everything?” Alex asks.

“Pre and post show snacks, check.”

Alex glances in the rearview mirror seeing the backseat piled high with junk food.

“I can’t even say anything, amphitheater food is stupid expensive so good call. I’ve got the tickets so—”

“Wait how did you get the tickets back I thought Eliza took them from you.”

“Oh, she did.” The smile on Alex’s face could only be described as diabolical.

“Then how….”

“The second I heard mom talking about her latest ‘opportunity’.  I knew she was going to tell me I couldn’t go to the concert. So I made fake tickets for her to confiscate and made sure to put up a really big fight when she came to take ‘em. It’s not like she’d have a reason to look too closely at ‘em.”

Kara’s eyes are wide at the obvious amount of planning and…..effort? Alex put into attending this concert. “That was very evil genius of you.”

“Yea well…” maybe Alex preens just a little. “Anyway, water is also a check. Do you have your modified ear plugs?” Alex looks over at Kara who nods enthusiastically.

“Awesome and last but not least.” Alex pulls out a CD case popping the disc into the player closing her eyes and letting the intro wash over her.

**_“Now I know that I can't make you stay but where’s your heart.”_ **

“Hell yea! You ready?” Alex yells grinning at her sister.

Kara can’t help but smile back at her sister’s contagious enthusiasm.

**_“Can you see my eyes are shining bright. 'Cause I'm out here on the other side of a jet black hotel mirror. And I'm so weak. Is it hard understanding I'm incomplete. A love that's so demanding. I get weak. I am not afraid to keep on living. I am not afraid to walk this world alone.”_ **

The car has barely made it off the block when Kara’s voice raises over the music, “Hey Alex, aren’t we going to the concert to listen to this band play these songs?”

“Yeaup.”

“Then why are we listening to them on the way to well listen to them?”

“Because it’s crucial part of the concert experience.”

Kara looks skeptical as Alex belts along to the stereo but says nothing.

The ride to the stadium is uneventful and Alex makes Kara memorize the row and section where they’re parked and repeat it back to her no less than four times so Kara knows where to go on the off chance they get separated.

It’s a bit of a hike from the parking lot but soon enough they’re standing in line with a bunch of other eager concert goers.

Alex prepared Kara for the probability of the metal detecting wands and neither of them brought bags so they make it through security without any issues.

If Alex had ever been the kind of person to skip that’s what she would have done all the way to their assigned seats. As it was she was grateful for the first time ever not to have Kara’s powers because she’s pretty sure no amount of self-control would keep her from hovering above the floor.

People are still finding their seats and Kara finds the crowds a little overwhelming but with her hand wrapped tight around Alex’s she knows she’ll be okay.

The lights have yet to dim giving Alex a clear view of the crew scurrying around the stage making last minute adjustments. She can barely wrap her mind around the fact that she’s here. She is so beyond psyched because _Rise Against_ is opening and how did she luck out that two of her favorite bands are touring together?

Before they know it the house lights are fading and the crowd surges in response.

The intro guitar strains pump through the speakers and Alex screams her heart out jumping in time to the music.

By the time _Rise Against_ has finished their set Alex is sweaty and hoarse and so, _so_ alive.

Kara worries her sister's heart is beating too fast but a moment of concentration makes it seem like everyone else’s in the vicinity more or less matches the pace. Leaving Kara to conclude it must be ‘normal’ under the conditions.

The lights have dimmed again and the entire stadium is buzzing with an excitement that almost appears visibly electric.

A sharp beeping cuts through the din and the response is instantaneous. The ear plugs are working just fine but Kara can feel the vibrations from the roaring crowd and the pounding speakers in every single blood cell. Alex gleefully shares that has nothing to do with her Kryptonian physiology.

Alex gets lost in the lyrics and theatrics of her favorite band. She revels in the strain on her vocal chords as she belts along with thousands of other voices feeling every carefully crafted word.

She spares a glance at her sister gratified to see her alien weirdo does actually seem to be enjoying herself.

Kara is having a blast. It’s still a little louder and a little brighter than she prefers but the ear plugs Alex modified for her are working and the sunglasses Alex clipped over her glasses when the stage lights started flashing intensely make all the difference.

Besides, Alex looks so happy and the collective passion is infectious. If Kara can have this much fun seeing a band she doesn’t really like all that much she can’t wait until she convinces Alex to take her to see a group she loves like N*SYNC.

The quiet lone piano notes drift over the audience and the cumulative response is deafening enough that Kara makes a note to ask Alex later about hearing loss associated with concert attendance.  

**_“When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city to see a marching band. He said, "Son when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?" He said "Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made?"_ **

Alex’s eyes are drawn to a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She watches transfixed a three kids sprint down the aisle and vault over the barricade, disappearing into the dense bodies filling the pit before security can even try and stop them.

There’s a split second of scattered stillness from some of the more daring as the reality of what was just witnessed sinks in. Then as if in the unspoken agreement of ‘they can’t catch us all’ dozens of people make a break for it.

The next few clear just as easily as the first before security starts catching on.

The music changes tempo.

A security guard tackles one of the risk-takers to the ground. Alex sees another grabbed around the waist and hauled back over the barricade but she’s already bolted dragging Kara with her.

**_“Do or die, you'll never make me because the world will never take my heart. Go and try, you'll never break me. We want it all, we wanna play this part. I won't explain or say I'm sorry. I'm unashamed.”_ **

Another few feet and they’d be home free except that was not accounting for the well-muscled security guard who suddenly stepped into their path. Alex swings Kara to the side just beyond reach of the guard’s outstretched hand while dropping to her knees and sliding right under their arm.

Alex doesn’t have time to be wonderstruck at the epic film worthy move, shouting at Kara who was now slightly ahead of her to jump.

Somehow throughout all that their hands remain clasped together so when Kara jumps (with slightly more force than your average human, though Alex could only hope it wasn’t too obvious in the darkened chaos),  Alex is pulled easily along with her and out of the firm grasp the security guard had secured around her ankle.

They tumble over the barricade and scramble the last few feet to where the empty space gives way to the part of the pit teeming with bodies.

**_“Give a cheer for all the broken. Listen here, because it's who we are I'm just a man, I'm not a hero Just a boy, who had to sing this song I'm just a man, I'm not a hero I Don't Care! We'll carry on We'll carry on”_ **

The pit is amazing made all the sweeter for Alex by how she ended up in it. She throws herself into moshing with reckless abandon while Kara tries to stick close in the sea of people, afraid of losing her sister or accidentally hurting somebody.

Claustrophobia starts to creep in each time Alex disappears from her view but Kara thanks Rao because even in this giant mess of similarly dressed individuals many of which have some kind of unnatural colors in their hair. Alex’s bizarre purple/orange combination is unique enough to make her easily spottable when the lights bounce around the fray.

Kara slowly becomes more comfortable when it becomes apparent that no one is blinking twice when they bounce off of her, they just carry on with their erratic movements like nothing happened.  

Alex notices this and takes advantage of Kara’s immovable countenance to strategically shove their way closer and closer to the front as the show goes on.  

The transition from the wild and heavy pacing in _House of Wolves_ to the soft piano intro for _Cancer_ is much more jarring live.

Alex loses the battle with herself and a few silent tears escape. She can feel them trailing down her face and hopes her heavy makeup can withstand the unexpected onslaught.

**_“And I just hope you know that if you say (if you say) Goodbye today (goodbye today)_ **

**_I'd ask you to be true (cause I'd ask you to be true) 'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you ”_ **

It wasn’t the same at all. Her dad wasn’t young though she supposed he was hardly old either. There was no slow wasting away. It was sudden and they didn’t even have a body to bury but the mournful notes hit Alex just the same.

**_“ 'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you.”_ **

Alex slips her hand into Kara’s and they lean into each other in silent steadfast support.

As the final notes fade out Alex notices more than just herself angrily wiping at their faces to rid any evidence of the how hard the song hit. Maybe that’s what leads to more the aggressive moshing than _Mama_ might typically produce.

**_“Mama, we all go to hell. I'm writing this letter and wishing you well, Mama, we all go to_ ** — **_”_ **

The music stops abruptly as Gerard Way cuts the band off. It’s not immediately obvious what’s going on until he’s leaning over the edge of the stage checking to see if the fan who fell in the pit and was getting trampled is okay.

They’re fine but instead of picking right back up with the music Gerard launches into a rousing speech. He starts off pretty obviously talking about pit etiquette but ends up with more of a touching message about sticking together because all we have in this shitty world is each other.

“You guys got to pick each other up. If somebody — even one person — falls down, everybody around them stops what they’re doing and picks them up off the ground.”

And maybe it’s strange that a decade later as Supergirl, Kara thinks about these spur of the moment words from the frontman of her sister’s favorite pop punk band almost as much as ‘El Mayara’ but that moment is something Kara never forgets.

For Alex, that moment comes later. After _The Black Parade_ set has ended and the band disappears while the crowd chants and cheers for the entire fifteen minutes they’re gone.

Before launching into the encore set Gerad works the audience, his fans. Alex is captivated. This time his words are less about humanity and duty.

These words are personal.

“Just be yourself, don't take anything from anyone, and never let them take you alive. All your quirks and all your problems — even your depressions and your failures — that’s what makes youyou.”

It’s exactly what Alex needs to hear even if she can’t imagine being able to comply.

And then the show begins anew.

**_“Well if you wanted honesty, that's all you had to say. I never want to let you down or have you go, it's better off this way.”_ **

Alex loves that they kicked off the second half of the show with one of her absolute favorite songs. She knows she’s never sang her heart out harder.

**_“What will it take to show you that it's not the life it seems? (I'm not okay)_ **

**_I've told you time and time again you sing the words but don't know what it means (I'm not okay) To be a joke and look, another line without a hook I held you close as we both shook for the last time take a good hard look!”_ **

Kara does her best not to be too concerned with the intensity in which Alex is losing herself to the music.

**_“I'm not okay. I'm not okay. I'm not okay. You wear me out. I'm not o-fucking-kay”_ **

The music fades and Alex is riding that concert high. She really wanted them to play _Our Lady of Sorrows_ but they played more than half of _Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge_ including all her favorites from that album so she accepts that as more than fair trade that they didn’t touch the first at all.

**_“What's the worst that I can say? Things are better if I stay So long and goodnight_ **

**_So long and goodnight And if you carry on this way Things are better if I stay So long and goodnight So long and goodnight.”_ **

Alex will never get over the poetry in closing out a concert by playing Helena. It’s just too perfect. She’s floating in a post concert haze, adrenaline still trickling even as bone-deep contentment grounds her.

She almost misses it in the euphoria, in the limited view from within the pack of dense bodies.

Almost but not quite.

The security guards are checking tickets, looks like not too carefully yet assuming most of the people this far up had been there for hours. Alex draws back slightly letting people flow around them. She’s scanning the other exits but security guards seem to be standing at each of them.

She watches as one of the guards stationed in the back catches two kids and hauls them away, to where Alex would rather not find out.

“Kara, don’t move, I’m gunna climb on your shoulders I need to check something.” Kara looks confused but nods. Alex clambers up not the least bit concerned about Kara supporting her weight for obvious reasons.

Alex tries to calm her frantically beating heart so as to not alarm Kara but all the exits are blocked and wait—

There’s one off to the side close enough to the parallel main stage exit they’re currently en route to that security probably figures the cone they put up is a significant deterrent to funnel everyone to the main exit but also close enough they can catch anyone who might try to ignore it.

If she times it just right they can get out.

Kara is first priority though so Alex slides off of her shoulders and starts leading her against the herd. She stops when they’re closer, scoping out the high rise seats for somewhere to send Kara.

Alex spots the perfect corner and points it out to Kara leaning closer to whisper in her ear.

“Hey, Kar I need you to listen to me okay it’s very important when I say so I need you to run, fast enough to blur okay, so no one can see you but make sure you stop right there in that blind spot okay?”

“But Alex I don’t—"

“It’s _really_ important, alright?” She says looking Kara directly in the eyes with a sense of urgency.

“And then make sure you go up those stairs and follow everyone else towards the exits, here—” Alex pulls out her wallet and folds quite a bit of money into Kara’s hand.

“Get yourself a shirt to commemorate your first—” she almost says earth, “concert and one of the marching band jackets if they still have ‘em. I reallllllyyy want one and maybe if you’re quick enough they won’t be sold out.” Alex says as if her casually telling Kara to use her powers is just about her selfish desire for elite band merch.

It’s just they can’t get caught because they aren’t supposed to be here and Alex is not about let a perfect night end like this.

“When I say go I need you to go. We’ll meet back at the car okay?”

Kara looks scared as she repeats back the location of their ride home.

She must sense Alex’s own fear though because she nods and only quietly says, “Promise?”

Alex holds out her pinky and waits for Kara to link her own before she says “I swear it.”

Alex keeps her eyes on the nearest security officers, the crowd is thinning now and those who were never meant to be in the pit are starting to catch on. Alex waits until security tries to gather a group of around six who as soon as they realize what’s up start trying to escape.

Alex waits until as many of the guards are distracted as possible and the coast is as clear as she figures it’ll get.

“Go now!” Alex watches until she sees her sister clear the pit, well more like until she doesn’t see her at all. The traffic cone is knocked over by the force of Kara’s wake and Alex doesn’t waste any more time making her own beeline for the exit.  

**_“In the middle of a gun fight... In the center of a restaurant... They say, "Come with your arms raised high!" Well, they're never gonna get me, like a bullet through a flock of doves... to wage this war against your faith in me, your life...will never be the same. On your mother's eyes, say a prayer...say a prayer!”_ **

She clears the fallen cone charging at full speed about to congratulate herself for her success when she’s seized by the back of her jacket and picked right up off her feet.

One uncomfortable trip and quite a bit of struggling later she finds herself down a back corridor lined with a surprising amount of other people who apparently also managed to make it into the pit.

Alex thinks these glorified mall cops are taking their jobs _way_ too seriously.

She ends up getting off with a warning and no fine but she’s banned from the venue until after she turns eighteen.

It would seem this wasn’t the first or last time a situation like this occurred and Alex is beyond grateful because during the slow passage of time her mind had conjured all manner of outcomes including the unrealistic yet unsettling sentence of life imprisonment.

She hurries towards the actual exit before anyone can change their minds about detaining her, hoping that Kara made it safely to the car and she wasn’t about to have to deal with a bigger and far more pressing issue of a missing sibling.

She releases a breath when she sees Kara sitting on the curb next to their vehicle and instantly feels guilty that it completely slipped her mind to give her sister the keys.

Kara’s head snaps up when she hears Alex’s approach. Alex finds herself with an armful of whimpering Kryptonian faster than humanly possible. “I’m so glad you’re okay Alex I saw them catch you and I—”

“Shhh Kar, it’s alright.”

“I didn’t know what to do. I should’ve helped, I—”

“Hey no listen to me you did exactly the right thing, okay. You did what I told you. You did what you needed to.” Alex murmurs.

“No one saw you right?” Alex has to ask because telling Kara to use her powers in a crowded arena was possibly a far stupider idea than Alex thought initially, now that the adrenaline is winding down and reality is sinking in.

“No, at least I don’t think so.” Alex nods because that has to be good enough, there are no other alternatives.

Kara pulls back and Alex notices for the first time she’s wearing a concert tee with _The Black Parade Tour_ dates. Alex can’t help but beam Kara notices where she’s looking and smiles shyly.

“I still think your music is weird but I wanted to make sure I always had something to remember tonight besides this ‘merch’ is a crucial part of the concert experience too, is it not? Kara parrots back some of Alex’s earlier words, scrunching her nose thoughtfully.

Alex grins and ruffles Kara’s hair which results in an indignant squeak. “ Merch is absolutely a crucial part of the experience Gazoo, you ready to bounce?”

Instead of answering Kara bounces literally on the balls of her feet but before Alex can facepalm Kara is excitedly thrusting a plastic bag that Alex hadn’t noticed before into her arms.

“What is this?” Alex asks tentatively holding the bag with furrowed brows.

“Open it, open it, open it, _open_ it.”

“Okay, okay.” Alex can’t help but laugh at her sister’s enthusiasm.

She opens the bag and pulls out a neatly folded jacket. Alex stares in awe at the shiny silver buttons and sleek design.

“You actually managed to get one? I thought for sure they’d be sold out.” Alex had not really been expecting that her sister would be able to snag one of the tour jackets.

Kara just shrugs, ducking her head “There’s more.” Alex looks at her blankly for a moment before slowly reaching in and pulling out an MCR muscle tank with the tour dates, a Rise Against bandana, and two bracelets one for each respective band.

“Kara how—”

“I used some of my own money.”

Ka —you didn’t need to—” Alex finds herself frustratingly choked up and unable to spit out a sentence. 

“I wanted to. I know how much you love them.” Kara says earnestly.

“Ugh I love _you_ twerp, what’dya say to some fast food pit stops on the way home?”

Kara’s eyes grow huge, “ Wait really? Eliza hates it when we ‘poison our bodies with that junk’.”

“Well, what’s one more secret tonight, huh?” Alex asks wiggling her eyebrows and grinning at Kara’s exuberant cheer.

They stop at three McDonanalds, a Jack n the Box, two Taco Bells and several In-n-Outs on the way back radio blasting and voices joyously off-key.

**_“Sing it for the boys. Sing it for the girls. Every time that you lose it sing it for the world Sing it from the heart. Sing it till you're nuts. Sing it out for the ones that'll hate your guts Sing it for the deaf. Sing it for the blind. Sing about everyone that you left behind Sing it for the world. You've got to make a choice If the music drowns you out. And raise your voice every single time they try and shut your mouth.”_ **

They pull into the driveway spilling out of the car in giddy laughter, playfully shoving each other as they head towards the house.

Alex looks up and oh, oh no light shines from inside what should be a darkened house. A light that she most definitely did _not_ leave on.

The door swings open a split second later and both girls freeze in their tracks. “I got the most interesting phone call tonight, Alexandra.”

And Alex’s heart plummets.

Eliza sends Kara up to her room and Alex stares at the clock silently ticking away.

She absentmindedly taps out a rhythm, humming under her breath while Eliza paces back and forth gesturing wildly.

Alex filters out the words and wonders how long this is going to last.

**_“You're just a sad song with nothin' to say about a life long wait for a hospital stay’ And if you think that I'm wrong, this never meant nothin' to ya_ **

  **_At all_ **

**_At all_ **

**_At all”_ **

 

                                **************************************                                                      

 

Alex looks around at the offers from various prestigious college programs that litter her bed, trying to breathe through the rage and despondency. The entire world at her fingertips….

She could go anywhere she wanted, literally on earth more or less. There wasn’t a continent, Antarctica included (the program run by an eccentric friend of her parents supposedly had a penguin for an instructor so she wasn’t jumping through any hoops to get there but it was an option goddamnit) on which she couldn’t find a school that would accept her.

Alex kicked her garbage can angrily from the corner next to her bed. Grabbing the nearest abroad acceptance letter, Cambridge, she crumpled it up and hurled it into the wastebasket.

Oxford landed near the door, the University of Toyko beside it.

The wadded up scholarship offers from the University of Melbourne, Karolinska Institute and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem all made it into the receptacle. ETH, Kyto University, and the Pierre and Marie Curie University, her top abroad picks were viciously torn to shreds before being deposited in the trash as well.

The rest she just unceremoniously drops into the garbage.

And then she lights them all on fire.

She stares into the flames hardly caring if she burns down the house as her mother’s words echo in her ears. _“What on earth were you thinking Alexandra?”_

Her mother was supposed to be _proud_ that she had gotten into the top schools across the globe. Instead, she was berated because _Kara_ still had two years of high school left and how could Alex possibly look out for her sister if she was half-way across the world?

Nevermind that half of these schools had reached out to _her_ not the other way around because their cutting edge programs were aware of her extracurricular experimentation in the bioengineering field as well as the few technology patents already in her name.

Most of which her mother had pushed her into for the last few years.(Alex likes to think Eliza learned her lesson when Alex accidentally engineered what was essentially a miniature Audrey II out of a venus fly trap and Kara’s Kryptonian DNA).

It should have been Eliza’s dream realized. Three years ago and they would be out celebrating and making a pros and cons list to help Alex choose because all of her options are so _amazing_.

For crying out loud, she got a full ride to _Johns Hopkins._ All her mother ever told since before she was old enough to understand, at least pre-Kara, was how Alex was going to be a doctor.

Now forget leaving the states her mother won’t let her leave _the_ state not even for Johns fucking Hopkins. That isn’t even Alex’s first U.S choice she _wants_ M.I.T or maybe Rockerfeller but those are also on the east coast so she’s shit out of luck.

She could just go.

M.I.T. is offering her a scholarship as well. She has money from the patents. She could just up and leave, live a life on her own fucking terms. No overbearing, impossible to please mother, no shadow of her dead father, no vulnerable alien sister….

She grabs a pen.

_Let’s run away together. Anywhere you wanna go and I’ll make it happen._

_What’d your mom do now?_

_That’s hardly the encouraging response I was looking for._

_Not to be the voice of reason because you know I hate that but I’ve still got another year of hell school and you would never leave your sister_

_It’s not fucking leaving my sister! plenty of people leave their home state or hell even their country for college! You can’t wait to get out of ‘the middle of bumfuck nowhere’!_

_Oh hey seems like I hit just the right nerve. so this is about college then? You don’t wanna run away with me to a tropical island? What happened to getting your pro surf on?_

_I don’t  get out on the water nearly enough anymore to make a career out of it, there’s just not enough time. I wanna be a doctor now, help people._

It was easier than saying I’m going into genetic/bioengineering concentrating on alien physiology and continuing my as of now unsanctioned work because my sister is actually from another planet and my life is no longer my own.  

_But we could do that too. The tropical island thing, I know how to make surfboards we could get a little shack by the beach somewhere spend our days lazing in the sun and sand. Live a quiet responsibility free life._

_Ummm that was actually kind of detailed and I can’t tell if you’re serious or not_

_I’m not serious. Nope not at all serious I mean unless your answer is yes then I’m totally serious...Ha yeah so what about the east coast? Would you be more amenable if it was the east coast?_

_Alex for real what’s going on?_

_I tried to discuss college with my mom. Thought she’d be proud ya know, excited but she saw my acceptance letters and flipped out_

_Your mom...is upset with you...for getting into colleges plural?!?!_

_I applied out of state, hell I applied out of the country but I’m supposed to look after my sister so..._

_So she freaked. I’m sorry Alex._

_Yeah well it’s my own fault I was dumb for even thinking.._

_It's not dumb Alex, it’s not your fault you always hope for the best with your mom and she always lets you down. What if I said yes?_

_What?_

_What if I said yes to running away?_

_I don’t —you just— are you serious?_

_Were you?_

_Yes. No. I don’t kn….I want to so so badly_

_Well what’s stopping you?_

_Besides an annoyingly level headed soulmate? I can’t leave my sister, not in a run away and never look back kind of deal at any rate but I can absolutely still go away to school. I won’t leave the state but I am going farther than Eliza’d like even if I have to fight for it._

_Well alright then there ya go_

_You are an obnoxiously amazing person. Has anyone ever told you that?_

_Can’t say that they have_

_Well I’ll be sure to remind you often then. So you give anymore thought to what you’re gunna do after next year?_

_Criminal justice major, I’m going to be a cop_

Okay, that was new and it momentarily distracts Alex from her own inner turmoil.

_Realize that in order to be a paleontologist you’d have to accept T-Rexes have feathers?_

_No I realized no one in authority is looking for me or my friends_

Alex blinked she could practically feel the venom blistering off the words.

_Hey, are you al_ —Alex rolled her eyes at herself it was obvious her soulmate wasn’t alright. She settles for—

_What’s wrong?_

_Nothing new really, you grow up anything other than pure white or passing for it at least, out here? You know the system is rigged against you, you learn that early on but it still doesn’t make it any easier, it doesn’t… it isn’t OKAY and she —fuck she—_

_What happened Ducky?_

_My friend, she’s missing and we can’t. They aren’t helping and her parents disowned her and we can’t FIND her, we’ve looked but—_

Alex stares at her arm at a loss, feeling the actual distance like a physical presence because what does she say to that? No words seem right and she can hardly be of any actual help, she doesn’t think. She asks anyway.

_I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do?_

_No. The only people who could don’t give a damn, they say there’s no case but that’s bullshit. They won’t even use her name….So I’m out of here in a year and if they won’t help I will. Be the change you want to see in the world or some shit_

_I think you’ll make a great cop_

_Really?_

_Yes really, you’re brilliant and you’re observant, tough and most importantly you want to help people, want to make a difference, I think you’ll be an amazing cop, Ducky._

_I might need a more intimidating nickname then._

_What are you quackers? That’s a downright lethal nickname. It’ll have criminals quacking in their boots._

_I am never speaking to you again…_

_Aw c’mon don’t be…... daffy xD_

_I hate you so much right now_

_But do you? Do you really? Hey, Hey Ducky Which dinosaurs were the best policemen?_

_Tricera-cops!_

Maggie laughs for the first time in days.

 

**************************************

 

Alex glances around the tiny dorm room, _her_ tiny dorm room and takes what seems like her first breath in several months.

The fight to get here had been long and bitter. Eliza had considered their ‘conversation’ about college resolved the second Alex stormed off. Which made the arguments moving forward that much more unpleasant.

Eliza had expected Alex to quietly accept National City University’s offer to go directly into their accelerated Ph.D./MD program. It was dependent on her taking the next available test date for the MCATs but that was practically a formality at this point.

Alex refused.

If she couldn’t attend her overall first, second or even third choice school. She was at least going to her first in state choice which was decidedly not NCU. Stanford might as well have been in Sri Lanka for all of the fuss Eliza kicked up. She simply couldn’t understand why Alex was being so _difficult_ about this.

Alex meanwhile couldn’t comprehend her mother throwing a fit over _Stanford._ Once upon a time, during one of her mother’s ‘get Alex to go to college early’ kicks she had mentioned Stanford at least four times a day.

Basically, Stanford was damn near perfect on any scale that wasn’t calibrated to ‘Kara’. Alex wasn’t sure why she expected this issue to be different from any of the others over the last few years.

It must have been a bit of deeply buried hope that Eliza didn’t _really_ expect Alex to give up her entire future for Kara.

Alex stopped hoping after that, it was the true price she paid for Stanford. The belief that deep down her mother could really have her first daughter’s best interests at heart.

At the end of the year, Alex would have a dual Bachelor’s in Bioengineering & Astrobiology from Stanford instead of an immediate Biology degree from NCU that felt too much like college equivalent of getting her GED.

Not that there was anything wrong with getting a GED, it’s just she actually enjoyed school and had the means to continue it.  

Her mother argued vehemently against that reasoning claiming a faulty comparison since Alex would be going straight to the Ph.D./MD track but Alex didn’t want to be a doctor doctor before she could legally drink either.

Some kids got to take a gap year to travel the world, find themselves, or just fuck off but Alex wanted the chance to experience undergrad like any other student, if only for a year and her mom acted like she told her she was dropping out to go snort coke off hookers in Amsterdam.

None of that mattered now though, not the tense car rides full of double meanings that went over Kara’s head to pierce Alex’s heart. Nor the campus tours with a high-strung Kryptonian and the whiplash between Eliza’s pride and her snide commentary. Not even herding an over-active Kara while simultaneously trying to move in after Eliza begged off to the hotel citing too much excitement for one day.

All of it melted away as Alex cranked up her music, jumped up onto her bed and let the frenzied drumming carry away any lingering tension.

Which is how her new roommate found her twenty minutes later. They had a somewhat... tumultuous relationship that year. If Alex spent more time in her room it might have been more of an issue.

As it stands Alex throws herself into college life with abandon. She has a decent mix of intensive near grad level courses and some gen-eds she hadn’t accumulated AP classes for or tested out of.

She likes it that way because in her upper levels she’s surrounded by other students who have a thirst for knowledge who want to be exactly where they are instead of forced to be.

No one judges her for pulling overtime in the lab because she’s never the only one who’s doing so. They all want to do more than just succeed and Alex thrives in the competitive atmosphere.

The library is open twenty-four hours and sleeping there doesn’t garner her any odd looks. She’s hardly the only one and when there’s a guy in the corner wearing footie pajamas, wrapped up in a comforter and clutching an anime body pillow well....  

The kid who sits next to her in Anthro 108 knows where all the best parties on campus are and is only too happy to share the knowledge with Alex.

Alex works hard and plays harder and thinks maybe this is what life is meant to be like.

She texts Kara every day and tries to Skype almost as much. She makes the trek down to Midvale as often as she can which is more than she’d like but not nearly enough to placate her mother.

In the midst of it all, she writes Ducky.

_Some freshman blew up the chemistry lab like we’re talking crater in the floor boom. (Are you okay?!)_

_Vis Vobiscum! Learned how to say May the force be with you in Latin today (Nerd)_

_I think the burrito guy has a crush on me which is kinda of awkward but would I be a terrible person if I said yay free burritos? (Can you send one my way?)_

Overall though her soulmate is quieter. She gets some raised eyebrows when it’s discovered they don’t actually speak.

Alex doesn’t know how else to describe it.

It’s nothing obvious, not the frequency or content of their correspondence but Alex can still tell the missing friend hasn’t stopped weighing on her soulmate. Not that she would expect the emotion from that kind of tragedy to just phase out but Alex knows there’s _more_ somehow.  

She can’t get her soulmate to open up about it though so Alex does what she can to help in other ways.

She assists with college applications and last minute SAT prep. It would seem ‘bumfuck nowhere’ wasn’t big on early college admission resources.

Alex makes charts and organizes study schedules. She initiates games of hangman with vocab words of the day. They compete to see who can come up with the most ridiculous set-up for practice math problems.  

When her soulmate rants about the racial and gender biases inherent in the SAT’s that effectively skew the ‘all important college admission factor’ results towards white males with upper income backgrounds which is such utter bullshit Alex supports the righteous indignation

How could she do anything but agree that it’s blatant injustice. Especially when they went so far as to review and alter the Reading and Writing sections when the male population was observed as not doing as well as the female demographic in that area but god forbid that same consideration was offered in reverse.

No, ‘females’ were just naturally not as good at math. Alex can scarcely wrap her mind around it.

And forget them even considering let alone acknowledging a racial bias against minorities or the privilege of having the money to spend on expensive SAT prep both of which often go hand in hand.

So Alex listens and Alex tries to commiserate, says she doesn’t _know_ buts she can empathize at least a little from having to work twice as hard as a woman in a STEM field, that it sucks it’s how ‘he’ has to go through life.

#####

The words catch Maggie off guard but they shouldn’t.

They shouldn’t but they do and Maggie knows she’s been playing with fire since the moment she chose to stick with her childhood nickname over providing her given one.

But what Maggie’s only realizing now is she’s waited too long to keep anyone from getting burned.

Yes, it had taken her aback when she first found out her soulmate was a girl. But in the midst her awakening sexuality Maggie realized pretty quick she had never really thought of Alex as _boy_ either. Even when everyone else referred to her soulmate as such Maggie just kind of went along with it.

Alex was always just Alex to her though.

The black ink stark against her skin proves Alex has always thought otherwise.

It shouldn’t hurt but it does. Everything in Maggie knows it’s the perfect opening to come clean. She knows that she should and she _wants_ to but the assumption mocks her as does the attempt at comfort.

It isn’t Alex’s fault. She couldn’t know what Maggie hasn’t told her but the words feel scorching like her skin is crackling and it’s getting harder to breathe.

Because Maggie isn’t white that’s true but she’s a woman as much as Alex is and a queer one to boot. The adage about having to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good seems to pale in comparison to her experiences. The experiences of those who have become her closest friends.

And maybe she’s never much believed in playing the game of who’s got it worst but that doesn’t magically stop the deck from being stacked against her.

Maggie has to tell her, Alex would understand surely she would not because of some predestined crap but because she’s Alex.

It’s just Maggie’s ribs still ache when it rains and the eighth fresh coat of paint this month is still wet on her locker.

She’ll be out of Blue Springs in a year but Alex no matter what Maggie feels about soulmates is with her forever.

She’s seen the light dim in her mother’s eyes on the rare occasion something leaves a stray ink mark on her father wherever the fuck he is though Maria always does her best to hide it.

Maggie hears the pen she’s gripping crack as her hand hovers over her arm. She crosses a bridge she can’t unburn when she simply agrees with Alex’s assessment.

Alex meanwhile remains blissfully unaware of the potentially life-altering choice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I found out that in the tv comic tie-in it's canon that Alex and Kara went to an MCR concert I knew I had to include it in this fic since that tour was my first concert. It just seemed like fate okay. And a lot of it was based on some stuff that went down at the Nassau Coliseum show...so anyway I'd apologize for what is essentially a song-fic smack in the middle of the actual fic in this the year of our lord two thousand and seventeen but I'm not even remotely sorry so....
> 
> I find myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words in this A/N so I will leave you all with a shout out to [murdershegoats](http://murdershegoat.tumblr.com//) bc otherwise this fic would've never gotten started and to [skillwiththequill](http://skillwiththequill.tumblr.com//) for generally cheerleading and also being like dude you cannot post a 51k chapter even though I realllllyy didn't want to break it up and post a bunch of consecutive chapters from Alex's pov. She's the real MVP. 
> 
> Come find me at [change-the-rules](http://change-the-rules.tumblr.com/) I enjoy validation....


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised a chapter in unofficial honor of soulmate day for sanvers week. I'm not including this in actual sanvers week because Lucy. Also since the break-up of what was supposed to be Alex's chapter into smaller parts it's pretty Alex heavy so....
> 
> A few people were expecting the last chapter to be Lucy's so I wanted to apologize for that. I really wasn't expecting Alex's chapter to get as long as it did so I split it up into 4 parts. Lucy's chapter I'm working on now and it'll be the next chapter after the pre-written ones are posted so chapter 7 I believe. 
> 
> This chapter includes mentions of party girl Alex and her spiral so trigger/content warning for alcohol and drug use if anyone needs it
> 
> **EDIT** I would like to sincerely apologize and add a trigger/content warning for emotional abuse re: how Eliza treats Alex at times.

Winter break comes far too quickly for Alex’s liking and not soon enough for Maggie’s.

In all fairness, Alex’s break starts a week before Maggie’s does and finishes well after. The difference in structure the year between high school and college makes,  'bullshit government conspiracy' is what Maggie grumbles with a smile Alex can't see brought on by the echo of Lucy in her head. 

And Alex can’t stay on campus no matter how much she may want to (family obligations be damned) since the freshman dorms close. Still, she lies about the date of her last final and basks in a few days of freedom for herself.

Less than half a day back in Midvale and Alex already finds herself regretting her decision not to take any winter classes.

She floats on her surfboard and makes a mental note to see about getting in at least one or two before the registration cut-off date tomorrow.

It had seemed so logical when Dr. Parker laid it all out. How Alex was perfectly set up to graduate with her dual degrees in May without even half the spring classes she was signed up for let alone additional winter ones.

Alex couldn’t help but preen a little at that and when Dr. Parker said Alex was remarkable but that even the best of us deserve to take a break now and then to relax and enjoy life...

Well, Alex looked into Dr. Parker’s sparkling hazel eyes and found herself agreeing. That had been happening a lot since Alex found herself assigned Dr. Parker as an advisor.

The woman was head of the department and didn’t typically take on students personally but it seemed Alex was a special case.

The first time Alex walked into Dr. Parker’s office she was rendered speechless.

By the woman’s credentials, of course.

A triple doctorate, medical doctor, and rumor had it once an army medic, Alex was captivated.

She was familiar with Dr. Parker’s work in astrobiology having based some of her own experiments on the findings from a study conducted in the Antarctic on an extraterrestrial microorganism found in some two hundred and fifty thousand-year-old ice and the subsequent applications in xenobiology it generated.

Alex is pretty sure she heard the doctor speak years ago as a guest lecturer but nothing quite prepared her for the reality of walking into Dr. Parker’s office and shaking hands with the woman herself.  

The woman who cuts an impressively striking figure and Alex can’t help the stray thought that it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if Dr. Parker turned out to be an honest to gods Amazon.

Out on the ocean with no distractions, it's a struggle for Alex to keep her mind from wandering but before she can get too lost in a subconscious battle of wills the last conversation they had prior to break floats to the forefront of her mind.

Dr. Parker mentioned the possibility of Alex staying on for an extra year post-grad to be on her research team before heading to NCU. Alex wants that more than anything but she knows what she promised her mother so she says she’ll think about it and focuses on the delivery instead of the words as the conversation continues.

Something the lit of Dr. Parker’s voice, more than just the slight Mediterranean accent enraptures Alex. She often finds herself daydreaming of the legends she’s heard of Themyscira, an island untouched by man. Home of women warriors, artisans, and scholars gifted with boons from the Greek gods themselves.

Alex thinks it sounds like quite the place. One she certainly wouldn’t mind stumbling upon….

A decidedly pathetic wave bumps up against her board spraying her wet suit and grabbing her attention but not doing much else.

Alex takes it as her cue to head in, the water’s been pretty flat all morning anyway. Yet it's been so long since Alex spent time communing with the ocean that she enjoyed her time despite just lazing about on its surface.

As she points her board toward the shore she catches sight of Kara seated on the sand, waving excitedly. It surprises Alex to realize just how much she truly missed her weird bubbly quirkiness even if it’s only been a few weeks since she last saw her.

“Allllleeeex.” Kara runs and Alex braces herself for impact with one hundred pounds of solid Kryptonian. Kara’s gotten significantly better, at controlling her powers over the years but the force of the hug still manages to knock the wind out of Alex.

“Ooof, I just saw you doofus.” Alex wheezes out returning the hug.

"I know but I missed you.” Alex doesn’t have Kara’s superhearing so she has to strain to figure out what it is Kara’s just mumbled into her shoulder.

She softens just the tiniest bit squeezing Kara a little harder before admitting, “I missed you too Kar but what’re you doing down here I thought you were helping mom with Chanukah prep?”

“I got banned from the house because I kept eating all the latkes before Eliza could finish making them.” Kara admits somewhat sheepishly.

Alex can’t help but snort, Kara may have become the golden child but if there was one sure fire way to get Eliza at least a bit miffed at the Kryptonian it was Kara’s penchant for completely devouring the food Eliza was attempting to cook in spite of any preventative measures taken.

“I thought we managed to get you housebroken?”

“How rude!” and Alex just laughs at the indignant catchphrase coming from Kara’s mouth.

“Maybe but also true. Wanna take a walk up to the stores and grab some snacks?” Alex offers.

“I thought we could sit here for awhile? I brought down some paints and permanent markers...”

“I should go take a shower first, I’ve got saltwater all—"

"I brought wipes!” Kara shouts, rather unnecessarily in Alex’s opinion, as she’s also brandishing said wipes about.

Alex drags a hand down her face. She really has to learn to say no to Kara’s pouts. “Fine but you have to draw the traditional holiday T-Rex for Ducky.”

“Done.” Kara grins immediately getting to work.

Alex had made sure to keep up with the ‘faux tattoo sleeves’ covering her arms even when Kara wasn’t around to do them, knowing how much the aesthetic had come to mean to her soulmate as an armor of sorts. Though it was sometimes a challenge, Alex found people at school willing to help but she knew that Ducky would always favor Kara’s designs over anyone else's’ save the memory of Jeremiah’s.

Alex watches as the lines and colors begin to coalesce into a recognizable image. Kara pauses looking up at Alex to ask, “I can still add the Santa hat, right?”  

“Yea why wouldn— “Alex starts to ask before it clicked, “Mom still only grudgingly accepting the celebration of Chanukah and adamantly ignoring the existence of all other holiday revelry?” Alex asked sadly.

Wintertime held a lot of fond memories for Alex. Her father was crazy about the holiday season and it was infectious.They celebrated Chanukah but also Yule which Jeremiah remained partial to (having his own fond childhood memories associated with it). As well as cultivating their own secular Christmas traditions that were largely and self-admittedly Jeremiah making up for years of growing up ‘deprived of consumerism’.

Kara nods, “I know she just misses Jeremiah but—” Kara cuts herself off clamming up and Alex feels her heart aching. When Kara first got here she had very much latched onto their holiday celebrations.

There wasn’t quite an equivalent to any of them on Krypton and Kara threw herself into the spirit of holiday cheer.

Alex had rolled her eyes at first, still very much not amused with the whole _alien_ sister thing and resentful of her inclusion in _Alex’s_ family traditions.

She couldn’t see it was the messages of hope and rebirth, good will towards men and light in times of overwhelming darkness, of love and of family that truly resonated with Kara.  

Then Kara had a meltdown and Alex realized the toll embracing a new culture while shouldering the responsibility of memorializing a lost one was taking on Kara. After that Alex did her best to help Kara celebrate her ‘new earth holidays’ with abandon.

“It’s okay to still want to celebrate Kar, honestly it’s what dad would’ve wanted.”  

Alex could understand where her mother was coming from, the holiday season was a minefield of inescapable memories of Jeremiah. That first year Alex would’ve been content staying in her room for the entire month of December but she pushed through for Kara, trying her best to keep as many traditions alive as possible. It helped her too, far more than she could admit then. At the time she knew if nothing else it would have made Jeremiah proud.

Eliza had almost reluctantly resumed their Chanukah celebrations but couldn't bear any additional reminders of 'Jerimiah's holidays' forcing the girls to abandon any overt displays of many cherished traditions. 

“C’mere Alf,” Kara looks up at her with big hopeful eyes as Alex pulls her into a side-hug.

“When we’re both in National City we can celebrate like we used to okay? The whole nine yards, not just the blessings and sufganiyot, which I know you can’t wait to get your hands on but the tree and the caroling, the nature communion and the bell ringing, the full scale decorating all of it, alright? It isn’t something you have to feel guilty about, I promise.”

Alex feels more than sees Kara’s nod from where her head is tucked into Alex’s shoulder and simply strokes her hair in response to the sniffling.

Alex snags a marker and starts doodling on Kara’s arm and when Kara finally sits back up she beams at the rather terrible Christmas tree and piles of presents Alex drew.

“Do you think my soulmate can see the marks yet?”

“I’m not the artist of the family so you should probably hope not.” Alex teases. “But seriously? It took Clark years to get his marks and he was a baby when he got here so it might take you a little longer but you never know, maybe.”

Kara pouts but goes back to working on Alex’s arm.

When Kara finishes the T-Rex, a Santa hat sits jauntily atop its giant head, a Yule wreath hangs around its neck and a dreidel is spinning at its feet surrounded by gelt.

Kara keeps drawing adding to the background, explosions of color, blue, silver, red, green and white, strings of lights and gingerbread people. Snow that Alex is fairly certain Kara’s never actually seen outside of a Hallmark movie falls from her upper arm dusting the T-Rex in a light coat of the fluff.

But Alex isn’t paying attention to Kara’s antics anymore, distracted by the words that materialize on her skin.

_How is the T-Rex even supposed to reach the dreidel, Alex?_

_That’s your biggest concern? Arm span? not say oh I don’t know dinosaur sentience?_

_You’re the one who drew the dreidel to begin with implying he understands the concept the fact remains his arms are far too short_

_Yea well he should get used to disappointment like the rest of us_

_Well aren’t you just chock full of holiday cheer_

_That’s what they tell me but if you think I'm bad you should really see K_

_Now K-pup is someone I would believe is genuinely brimming with actual holiday cheer._

“Girls!” Eliza's voice carries down from the house and across the beach pulling Alex from her conversation.

Kara looks over at Alex who's only response is to sigh as she helps her sister gather up the art supplies before they make their way back to the house.

Things stay relatively peaceful through the first two nights of Chanukah. Alex had taken to leading the blessings in her father's absence.

Eliza and Jeremiah used to alternate who led but after his death, Eliza could barely look directly at the menorah let alone manage the blessings.

So Alex led them until the third Chanukah after Jeremiah was gone when Eliza quietly reached for the matches herself. Still, the third blessing on that first night proved troublesome for Eliza to make it through.

This time Eliza’s voice rings out steadier than Alex has heard it in awhile “ _Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam shehecheyanu v'kiyimanu v'higi'anu laz'man hazeh. (Amein)”_

It’s the first time since Jeremiah died Eliza is able to make it through the entire first night’s blessings herself.

Alex anchors herself to the moment. She doesn’t let herself think of the what-if’s or if only's just ruminates on this here and now. Alex thinks of her father and Kara’s hand tight in hers and of Eliza’s voice devoid of the bite she’s grown used to.

At this point, Alex doesn’t even bother hoping or praying it will last.

(it doesn’t)

The rest of break passes with agonizing slowness. Alex spends her days surfing or with Kara, often times both.

On the eve of winter solstice Alex waits til Eliza’s asleep before pulling Kara out of bed and down to the beach where she’s set up a bonfire pit. Alex lights the Yule log and as it burns they say farewell to the old calendar year. Soon the log is blazing and Kara and Alex cuddle into each other to ward off the chill the brisk night air brings with resolutions and hopes for the upcoming year on their lips.

They sing ‘Deck the Halls’ and watch until the long burns itself out. Alex stoops down to collect the remnants of the fire to use the next year before kicking sand into the pit ensuring the fire is well and truly out.

They take their time walking back up to the house and count it a success since Eliza didn’t notice they slipped out.

In general while home, Alex avoids her mother as best she can. So very tired of any positive commentary on her coursework turning into Eliza making digs about her being so far from home and how it's negatively affecting Kara while simultaneously praising how well Kara is doing.

If it were coming from anyone but her mother Alex might've found the contradiction confusing, as it stands it's just really annoying.

More than that though it gives Alex pause.

The seeds of dissent are planted.

Alex reasons if Kara's flourishing like Eliza keeps saying and really editor of the school paper, all the art awards, marching band of all things, speaks for itself then why does Alex even need to come home.

Belinda the bully transferred schools and the rest of the kids who had dared try to pick on Kara even after Alex put the fear of God into most of the student body had all graduated so safety isn't much of an issue anymore.

She talks to Kara nearly every day, ‘behold the marvel's of modern technology we haven't to wait a fortnight for horses to bring the post mother.’

Eliza isn't amused.

She runs the idea by Ducky worried maybe she really is being as selfish as Eliza is making her out to be. Alex knows she cares about Kara, no she loves Kara and wow if you'd told her she'd feel that way only a few short years ago….

She's proud of her sister and proud to _be_ her sister but she wants to live her own life and it would be nice if her mom could just be proud of _her_ again.

Her soulmate seems to think Eliza's being too hard on her and Alex clings onto that sentiment like it’s a life preserver.

Alex spends the last few days of winter break back at her dorm but Kara stays with her. They spend it eating truly alarming quantities of pizza while watching Disney movies.

When Alex has her first meeting of the semester Dr. Parker raises an eyebrow at the additional six credits on Alex’s transcript that she wasn't signed up for when she left but otherwise doesn't comment. Especially when Alex inquires a bit timidly if her offer for the following year still stands.

Dr. Parker is delighted. The smile Alex gets stays seared into the forefront of her mind the entire time she's negotiating her future at NCU.

Alex manages to put her slot on hold for one more year promising to bring her findings from her work with Dr. Parker.

The rest of the year passes in a blur of classes (Alex gets to make _alcohol_ for a _grade,_ thank you ancient technologies elective) and parties (Alex currently holds the keg stand record at several fraternities), checking in with Kara (who rarely lets her get a word in edgewise but Alex doesn't mind so much), late night meetings with Dr. Parker (It's touch and go for a while with the numbers she needs for her senior thesis not aligning) and always Ducky.

_Good luck on your physics test today you got this! (Ugh can you just give me the answers they already think I'm cheating half the time anyway)_

_Some guy in my class decided I was a 'fake geek girl’ because of the alliance starbird wait I’m sorry the ‘rebel insignia’ t-shirt I was rocking, at first I didn't have the heart to tell him one of my majors was astrobiology but then he said Leia wasn't force sensitive so I destroyed him (pls tell me there's video)_

_I think my roommate changed the locks on me...I didn't even think it was possible to change these locks. (What an ass.I can totally teach you how to pick 'em tho)_

Towards the end of the semester Alex finds out her soulmate has decided on Gotham University.

She knew Ducky was originally leaning toward Metropolis since Taylor, the pseudo big brother moved there permanently after graduation but Gotham offered a scholarship.

Plus after speaking to the GCPD he found out he could work in one of the precincts as a civilian during school and that signing up for the auxiliary police until he graduated and applied for the academy was also an option.

But all Alex hears is Gotham and she has to tamp down the panic.

Metropolis may be a huge city but at least it has Clark. She may not have the highest personal opinion of Kara’s cousin (when she was growing up she thought he was pretty neat then he ditched Kara with them) but she can respect his devotion to protecting people and especially his city.

If only it hadn’t come at the cost of his cousin who was prepared to raise _him_ as a child herself.

Gotham, meanwhile has a vigilante that runs around dressed like a bat and more super villains (not including the more basic villains and your average homegrown criminals) within spitting distance then there are seashells on the beach.

Alex ends up completely overcompensating by going into research mode.

She starts by figuring out which dorm is the best place to live on Gotham University’s campus factoring in safety, location, reputation, average yearly demographics, and floorplans.

Kara is aghast Alex hasn't done food first.

So Alex despite having transportation lined up next (and really the statistics she's pulled from the villain subsection of the GTA Service Advisory make Alex glad her soulmate won't be utilizing public transportation very often) focuses on nourishment instead.

That doesn't stop her from eventually including several resources for defensive, offensive and tactical driving courses for her soulmate to consider.

Alex ignores the look Kara gives her when the first thing she sees on Alex's list is essential non-perishable items to keep in the dorm room, so sue her if she wants to keep her soulmate from roaming the streets of Gotham late at night when not entirely necessary.

Kara's pacified when pizzeria recommendations immediately follow. Alex lists all of them in order from best to decent under the parameters of crispiest crust which gross but her soulmate clearly doesn’t share that opinion.

After covering pizza which may just be the most important food group, Alex discovers there seem to be quite a few places to get Brazilian fare.

She finds a particular restaurant downtown, it appears unassuming at first glance but its reputation precedes it as some of the best food in the city. And absolutely the place to go for exceptional and authentic Brazilian cuisine.

She later finds out the original owners of _Malagueta_ who passed it down to their children along with the treasured family recipes, immigrated from a town very close to the village in which Ducky’s vovó was born.

Alex has to stop Kara from trying to fly to Gotham to personally taste check all these places herself under the guise of not wanting to pass along faulty information. Alex’s need to be as accurate as possible at all times almost overrides her logic and self-preservation skills. _Almost._  

She also finds a little hole in the wall diner that has by all accounts the best grilled cheese in several states.

Alex knows it’s not the food itself that always brought Maggie comfort but she figures it might to some extent once she’s moved to another city. Plus they surprisingly have internet so maybe Ducky can still get those conversations with her mom over the melted sandwich.

It’s a little corny but Alex compiles a list of must see sights around the city even if some of them are ‘tourist traps’. She also ranks all of the museums by their paleontological sections, naturally and the _safest_ times to visit them.

Kara stops her from going too overboard so the last thing Alex amasses is more than a handful of places that should be avoided at all costs. She makes sure to include the various reasonings as to _why_ because she knows her soulmate doesn’t appreciate being told he can’t do something.

Alex trusts Ducky to mostly make good decisions but leaves out some of the more ‘intriguing’ danger zones he’s unlikely to stumble upon accidentally, anyway in a fruitless attempt to keep her soulmate from getting any ideas about playing the hero before attaining any sort of actual training.  

All the information gets color coded and neatly organized leaving Alex to lament how much easier it would be to just mail her soulmate the giant binder of her findings.

Alex herself quietly signs up for the following year's room assignments when they're posted.

She's looking forward to the apartment style housing she qualifies for now that she's no longer a freshman. Even if she ends up with a roommate situation similar to her current predicament, at least she'll have her own room with a door that locks.

Summer break comes almost faster than Alex can process it.

At graduation Dr. Parker sends her off with a friendly hug that raises Alex’s body temperature quicker than the hot California sun.

And Ducky draws Champy in a graduation cap, _Congratulations!_ in bold colorful letters while the _I'm so proud of you_ sits delicately, privately on Alex's inner wrist.

Alex doesn't quite make the connection between the similar feelings of warmth both actions evoke.

Ducky's moving in early over the summer and the closer the date gets the more Alex wonders how many lines she’d be crossing if she got one of the comp sci majors she knows to teach her how to hack into GCU’s student personnel files.

If only because she really wants to send her bashert some bear spray and a mace...or maybe just a can _of_ mace would suffice.

It couldn't be that hard to figure out who her soulmate is once the search parameters were set to exclude all results outside of the small scholarship pool.

At least she's too busy freaking out about the thought of her soulmate essentially taking up crime fighting in Gotham to dwell on the fact that he won't be coming to California anytime soon.

Eliza predictably blew a gasket so summer break was far from the relaxing and fun romp enjoyed by many of her peers and with her soulmate distracted moving states and settling into a new city September can't come quick enough for Alex.

She’s typically excited to start a new school a year but this is on a whole 'nother level.

In the end, Alex can’t even bring herself to care too much about the negatives because somehow that year turns out even better than the last.

For starters, her roommates end up being amazing.

Hallie and Jordana were already friends. While Emma was a last minute switch in after Hallie’s boyfriend who was originally supposed to be the fourth roommate, broke up with her when he discovered the soulmate he didn’t think he had was just quite a bit older than expected and hadn’t wanted to interfere in his life as he was growing up.

Hallie isn’t too broken up about it as she and her own soulmate have an open relationship, anyway.

Alex is the first to move in, two weeks before the official start of term after having agreed to help Dr. Parker begin prepping their research space.

A week later Emma, co-captain of Counterpoint, one of the campus’ a cappella groups arrives early as well for a head start on administrative duties.

Alex isn’t there while she’s moving in and their busy schedules have them missing each other for two days.

When Alex comes home late Saturday afternoon she’s greeted by a bubbly redhead shoving a glass of wine into her hand and dragging her over to the couch gushing about how ‘us odd one out roomies need to get to know each other’

It takes Alex a minute to do anything more than blink owlishly at her grinning roommate unaccustomed to so much enthusiasm directed at her by anyone who isn’t Kara. If Emma is bothered by Alex’s lack of response she doesn’t show it.

Two and a half bottles of wine later and the girls are a giggling mess crammed into their shared bathroom doing their makeup. It had been decided somewhere in the transition between the first glass ‘superficial getting to know yous’ and the third bottle ‘new roomy sobbing over her asshole soulmate’ that they would go out to one of the local bars.

They spend the night elbows leaning on the bar flirting with cute guys. Well Emma flirts, Alex cites her soulmate and Emma gives her a sad, knowing smile because Alex mentioned her bashert doesn’t really buy into the whole destiny deal.

Emma’s doesn’t either but he refuses to even communicate with her. Emma thinks Alex has it worse to be in love and constant contact with someone who doesn’t feel the same but Alex remembers the long painful nights of silence and pities Emma though she’d never say it out loud not even with wine loosening her tongue.

They’re both hopeless romantics at heart but Alex is learning to hide it much better.

Alex switches to hard liquor and it’s just enough mistake the way her stomach tightens as Emma laughs, the way goosebumps rise at the feel of Emma’s hot breath ghosting her ear when whispering about the guy eyeing them from the corner of bar for the alcohol burning in her veins, just enough to giggle and believe it when she confirms he is indeed ‘mega-hot’.

They go home alone.

The twenty minute walk taking nearly twice as long as they stumble along without a care in the world. The heavens open up in an unexpected downpour and they dance in the rain with shrieks of laughter.

When they finally make it back to the apartment the new brfs (best roomies forever as proclaimed by Emma) hug it out before departing for their own rooms.

Alex strips out of her wet clothes and sinks into her warm bed, the room lazily spinning around her.

Alone, her giddy buzz begins to fade, tinged with melancholy she tries not think about how tonight might’ve been in a world without definitive soulmates.

If it would’ve been her and Vicky together instead of her and a virtual stranger. If they would’ve still been best friends, living together, kicking pre-med ass together and painting the town red at night...together then falling into the same bed like when they were kids.  

If she might’ve caught the eye of that guy in the corner of the bar and _knew_ he was the one, if it wouldn’t have mattered to her in the slightest that he might not be.

She falls asleep hand pressed to her own chest feeling her heartbeat, yearning for the warm, safe, _physical_ touch of her soulmate. Her drunken mind almost grasps the presence of the soft heartbeats lulling her to sleep brought forth from the edge of her consciousness.

She’s forgotten the near revelation by morning.

At the end of the week, their final two roommates arrive at the same time in a whirlwind of unpacking, parents, and food.

Alex considers hiding in her room but she prefers to face the problems she's self aware of head on.

So she squares her shoulders and walks out to greet her new roommates….and what appears, to Alex at least, to be their entire families.

She gets caught up in the chaos of introductions and unpacking, Alex swears even with her memory she will never retain all these names.

There’s an endless stream of chitchat swallowing her nerves and before she knows it she somehow ends up chopping vegetables?

Hugs are doled out frequently and spontaneously and by the end, Alex has even stopped tensing at each one she finds herself wrapped up in.

Soon the fridge is packed full of leftovers and prepared meals to last all four of them weeks (Jordana’s father a chef insisted the food was for all of them).

The sky is already dark when the families make their final goodbyes (for about the eighth time but they actually leave after this one) and Hallie disappears into her room as the front door locks behind them all.

Jordana immediately apologizes on behalf of both of them for their ‘crazy’ families and Alex is glad Emma is there to happily reassure them it was no bother because Alex herself is a little choked up.

It’s hard to conceive of so many people coming just to help with what has to be at this point a fairly routine move-in and she can’t help thinking about the solitary ride up(with her mother attending a conference and Kara at band camp) and the take-out that filled her first two weeks.

Hallie reappears almost immediately toting a bong practically as tall as she is and Alex’s eyes widen at its sheer size. She quickly learns her new roommates are bonafide stoners who immediately offer to smoke their new roomies up as per their code.

Emma declines not wanting to risk damaging her vocal cords and Alex defers as well. She and Vicky had tried a joint once at their first high school beach party and it hadn’t done much.

She waits for the peer pressure moment her health classes had warned about but it doesn't happen and she feels a bit foolish when Hallie only shrugs and says cool and then asks if they’d prefer no smoking in the apartment at all.

It’s only after both Alex and Emma say they don’t mind that Hallie continues packing the bowl for her and Jordana.

There’s a glass of wine suddenly in Alex’s hand and she blinks before realizing Emma had fetched them both one.

Jordana makes sure to blow the smoke from her hit directly out the window and tosses out that the offer stands should they ever change their minds, as they all settle into a laid back night of X-Files re-runs.

Alex is worried at first, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for them to show their true colors. It doesn't happen. It’s just... comfortable bizarrely enough.

Like they’d all known each other ages instead of just having met.

Their apartment becomes a hub of activity, it isn’t uncommon to come home at any hour and find at least three people settled into her living room. Smoking, laughing, drinking, just hanging out enjoying a human connection.

If asked before it happened Alex would have despised the mere idea very much valuing her personal space. She had never considered herself a 'people person’ either, still doesn’t but there's something reassuring about the presence of people who hold no expectations.

Alex can come home and lock herself in her room, or venture into the living room where it won’t matter if she’s stoically quiet or engages in conversation. No one cares if she’s sober or drinking or smoking and it’s nice, that complete freedom of choice with no repercussions.

Alex thinks maybe that’s why conversations with her mother start hitting harder.

She has a routine now. A laundry day and a rotating Saturday morning grocery shopping schedule.The days get kitschy names she complains about to Ducky even though they both know Alex secretly loves them.

There’s Margarita Mondays and Tequila Thursdays but also Taco Tuesdays and Friday Pizza Nights. Scribblin’ Sundays were established after Hallie found out about Alex’s soulmate. They have vastly different styles but Hallie is every bit as good as Kara artistically.

Alex has people who keep leftovers in the fridge for when she stays all night at the lab and who bake each other ‘good job on passing your midterm’ cakes even if it was only with a ‘C’.

It’s a safe place, a physical one so different from her relationship with Ducky. It's weird considering the foot traffic her apartment sees but it never feels that way.

Half-way through the semester, Alex informs her mother that she won’t be able to accompany Kara to Metropolis to visit Clark after Chanukah like originally planned.

Dr. Parker invited her to assist with a presentation at a conference she’s attending over winter break and like hell Alex was going to pass up that opportunity.  

Alex is utterly unsurprised by Eliza’s reaction at this point. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t hurt, the fight was volatile even by their standards and Alex chucking her phone across the room is what effectively ends it.

She stalks into the kitchen only to be met by Hallie’s sympathetic eyes and wordless offering of a fully packed bowl.

This time Alex accepts.

Conversations with Eliza become one hundred percent more tolerable when Alex is high.

Everything does if she’s being honest.

Her work on genetic engineering in relation to Kara where the hardest part is no one can know anything about what the particular _relation_ with regards to Kara is, becomes less abrasive.

The hours spent staring at numbers that won’t click becomes less infuriating and she hardly notices the time as it melts away while she rearranges them over and over until they work.

It presses a mute button allowing her to express her worry for her soulmate without all encompassing panic when Scarecrow releases fear gas on GCU’s campus or the Mad Hatter accumulates an army of co-eds.

She’s never been more glad of the soulmate connection in instances like these when she can find out immediately whether or not her soulmate is okay.

On the flip side, Alex loves writing to Ducky while really high because she swears she can see the words as they shimmer into focus, see a little bit of the mystical physically manifest into their connection. If she closes her eyes and drifts it’s like she can really _feel_ her soulmate’s very essence surround her, warm and alive.

She tries to think of a non-creepy way to ask Ducky if he actually smells like petrichor and leather.

…….And Lavender?

Alex doesn’t subscribe to gendering intangible things like scent but she still reckons she’s imagining the floral essence. Particularly since it overlaps with the leather but is distinct from the earthy....

Colors are brighter and sitcoms are funnier and the whole universe seems even more vast and impossibly tinier all at once.

It feels like a whole new world has been opened up to her, the sensations lingering well after she’s come down.

Overall, her curriculum is fulfilling and most of her relationships flourishing and Alex doesn't think she's ever been this happy in her entire life.

If her dad were still alive and her soulmate physically with her Alex knows without a doubt she would have found her ‘stabilized Omega molecule’, her version of perfection.

How unbelievably happy she is despite those factors has Alex floored.

So, of course, it all has to come crashing down around her.

Alex remembers too late that for 3.2 seconds Seven of Nine may have seen perfection but that ultimately Omega was destroyed.

***************************************************

It starts small on an unassuming Tuesday towards the end of the spring semester. Alex had been toying with foregoing NCU altogether.

She's hanging out in Dr.Parker’s office hoping to casually bring it up to get an opinion.

Dr. Parker may no longer be her advisor and they might even be something akin to friends these days but Alex values her opinion over pretty much anyone else’s in her life particularly when it comes to academics.

Alex has just about worked up the nerve to bring up the topic with the power to alter the trajectory of her life completely when a woman sweeps into the office.

If Alex thought Dr. Parker was striking then the only possible way to describe this mystery woman is drop dead gorgeous.

It's obvious to Alex that Dr. Parker is caught completely off guard and yet Alex has never seen her mentor smile like _that._

And then suddenly there’s kissing and Alex feels sick to her stomach.

The sudden, unwelcome feeling leads to panic because since when was she homophobic.

She isn’t or least she never thought she was. She loved her paternal grandfather’s soulmate Chuck and Jordana’s two moms are cool.

It never made any sense to her how people could simply discredit soul marks they would otherwise reverie just because they romantically connected two women or men or god forbid people who eschewed the binary altogether.  

It was absurd and it certainly wasn't logical and Alex detested the illogical.

Which is why she wanted to crawl under the nearest rock when her body jumped out of her casual position lounging across a corner chair of its own accord only to knock over a stack of papers.

Her frantic attempts to clear the accidental mess she made was only making it worse and she could barely hear the introduction of Dr. Parker’s _wife_ over the thundering in her ears.

Dr. Parker was married.

To her soulmate.

Her female soulmate.

Alex was finding it difficult to focus on the anecdote, something about a mishap with their rings.

Alex cringes at her own awkward stab at returning the pleasantries. She wasn’t sure why it felt like the walls were closing in but she knew she needed to get out before she irreparably damaged her relationship with Dr. Parker.

So Alex flees hoping her inner turmoil isn’t as obvious to them as it felt, completely missing the concerned and sympathetic glances respectively aimed at her retreat.

Alex barrels back to the apartment never more grateful that there was pretty much always someone in the main room with a fully packed bowl and smokes until she can’t string two coherent thoughts together.

It’s only at this point the panic starts to recede.

She spends a few hours engrossed in Adventure Time! before even attempting to face the earlier revelation of _Dr. Parker’s soulmate_.

She isn’t any less confused but the lingering remnants of THC at least help her actually get a few relevant words out.

Alex writes to Ducky word vomiting her confusion and apparent homophobia. She confirms her NCU slot for September while she awaits a reply.

As May approaches Alex gets far too wrapped up in her own turbulent emotions, the bedlam of closing out experiments in preparation for her imminent transfer all while avoiding the lead scientist while making it look as if she _isn’t_ avoiding the lead scientist, in finals and partying and avoidance.

Alex’s thoughts are chaos and she doesn’t notice as her soulmate subtly begins to put some distance between them.

To be fair it’s barely noticeable.

Maggie doesn't stop their communication just puts up a wall that Alex is too distracted to see.

Because Maggie can recognize Alex's feelings were rather the opposite of homophobic but that doesn’t change that’s where _Alex’s_ brain immediately went.

And Maggie doesn't know what to _do_ , wasn't really planning on doing anything in the long run about the feelings she has for Alex.

It's still all tangled up in her brain, childhood trauma and 'fate’ and Alex her one true constant in almost two decades of living.

Her mother's words in her sister's voice ‘your soulmate is the one person who’s always there for you’  will always haunt the darkest corner of her heart awaiting the day Alex leaves like everyone else.

And Maggie can acknowledge at this point the mistake she's made concealing her identity. It doesn't matter her intentions because the outcome is clearly causing Alex undue distress.

Only, if Maggie says something _now_ it could be the very thing that drives Alex away.

So she keeps her mouth shut, supporting Alex while carefully keeping her at arm's length.

All the while justifying it because they didn't have a future beyond confidants, beyond _friends_ and one day Alex would realize Maggie wasn't who she thought and she would be gone and it was really all for the best anyway.

It had to be.

Soulmates didn't mean forever and Maggie wanted that with Alex so she would take what she could get while still protecting her heart because truly loving Alex and losing her would break Maggie.

***********************************

For the first time since Alex stepped foot on Stanford's campus, she can't wait to leave. She does so immediately after her last final not even sticking around for any of the blowout parties.

It's bittersweet.

Alex convinced herself it’s time to move on but she’ll miss her roommates and the home they made, knowing even if they keep in touch it’ll never quite be the same.

On the drive back to Midvale the sun beats down heating the car. Even the air rushing through the open window is warm but Alex finds herself fighting off a chill when she thinks of graduation this time last year or how she didn’t even tell Dr. Parker goodbye.

Alex thinks going home for the summer will give her a chance to _breathe._ A chance to regroup before heading out to National City with her sister as they start the next chapter of their lives, together.

Instead, she finds out Kara is going to Stanhope.

None of Kara’s animated rambling sinks in, not about how the winter trip Alex missed solidified her decision or how Clark offered his couch but she wants the dorm experience ‘just like you Alex’ or how she’s worried about not declaring a major right away but ‘there are just so many options how do I _choose_?’.

It simply doesn’t register. Alex is struck completely dumb.

She knew of course that Kara was interested in Stanhope. In going to college closer to Metropolis to try and possibly forge a closer relationship with Clark now that she was older. Alex knew but Alex filed it under irrelevant because Stanhope was across the country and Eliza would never allow it.

Except Alex forgot.

Alex forgot that the rules set for Alexandra did not necessarily apply to _Kara_.

Kara who was apparently going to Stanhope.

Alex tries not to let the bitterness swallow her.

Where was Hallie's four-foot bong when she needed it.

MIT, Rockerfeller, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins.

The names swirl around Alex’s mind and she does her best not to think about the doors her mother slammed in her face. She had let go of the what-if’s and the missed opportunities. She stopped dreaming of M.I.T when she had got to Stanford and fell in love with all it had to offer.

Alex worked so hard to keep the rage and embitterment from drowning her when Eliza dashed nearly every one of her college prospects. Now it was all threatening to bubble up and over again.

_I don't blame Kara._

It becomes her mantra. In her head. On her skin. Because she doesn’t blame Kara, not really but she can almost sense the tiny tendrils of long since abandoned resentment poking at the cracks in her resolve.

And it would have been nice to have a bit more of a heads up. She doesn’t understand why Kara wouldn’t tell her sooner. Kara’s eyebrows scrunch when Alex asks because ‘I did’ and 'I hadn’t _really_ decided until the day before the deadline' which was only a few days before Alex got back.

Alex nods and accepts the answer but the cynicism that’s been breeding strong stock within her since Kara showed up on her doorstep, that amplified with Jeremiah’s absence is sure Eliza had something to do with it.

So no she doesn’t blame Kara, not really but that doesn’t keep her sister’s non-stop excited chatter from feeling like salt in a wound.

Even that she can handle. She’s long since become used to the sting of words from unwitting mouths.

Two weeks.

That’s how long Alex lasts in Midvale which hasn’t quite been home since even before Jeremiah died.

Because for two weeks Eliza is busy but dinners are almost pleasant. And then Eliza has the day off and wants to talk.

Alex thinks she’s braced herself for whatever it is Eliza could possibly want to speak with her about. She was under the impression that her mother couldn’t possibly sink lower when it came to Alex’s expectations.

Alex _hates_ being proved wrong.

Because Eliza has some connections and pulled some strings. She genuinely doesn't see any issue when she says, “Sweetie, I know you never really wanted to NCU anyway so why not go to the east coast with Kara? Columbia isn’t too far or….”

Alex doesn’t hear anything else because Alex is gone before Eliza can finish her sales pitch.

She doesn’t hear her mother calling after her as she storms out of the house and clambers onto her dad’s bike in a fit a rage and tears that obscure her vision beneath the visor of her helmet she has no recollection of jamming on her head.

It’s a miracle, she acknowledges later, that she makes it to National City in one piece without wrecking her bike.  

She starts apartment hunting then and there. By which she means she stumbles into one of the first bars that catch her attention and the owner just so happens to also manage the apartment building on the corner.

So Alex goes to check it out.

Her first thought is Kara would love the place with it’s sprawling open layout and huge picture windows. Truthfully it's a bit more light than Alex would generally prefer. But she can admit it’s got potential.

And sure she could find a place closer to campus or cheaper, both probably but she can’t shake the feeling of inevitability about this place.

Besides she can afford to splurge a little on her accommodations.

It’s not home but then Alex certainly wasn’t looking with that in mind.

She starts the paperwork before she leaves and tells herself the two bars and a liquor store within stone throwing distance have zero impact on her choice to actually go with this particular apartment.

Alex moves in by the end of the month with Kara’s help. Eliza watches with pursed lips and folded arms as they load the car in Midvale but she pulls a stiff Alex into a bone crushing hug and whispers that she loves her and to call her when they get there.

No one can say Alex doesn’t know her sister because Kara is completely enamored with the place from the moment she steps into the hallway.

Alex doesn’t say anything about it but she’s already planning on passing the apartment off to Kara as a graduation gift. She doesn't let herself think that Kara might decide not to come back to National City after finishing school.

Ducky having had enough of dealing with campus wide emergencies decided to try moving out of the dorms and into an apartment for sophomore year. Alex didn’t have the heart to burst her soulmate’s bubble with the general crime statistics of Gotham. The whole damn city was a giant disaster waiting to happen.

She figures it would be a bit redundant anyway considering how much time Ducky spends on the streets volunteering with the Auxiliary police.

Still, them moving into their own places around the same time affords them a unique bonding experience.

They set a date to shop for their new living spaces ‘together’.

_Omg I found a ladle shaped like a dinosaur!_

_We're supposed to be shopping for necessities Duck_

_Alex it's a ladle...Shaped.like.a_ **_.dinosaur!_  ** _that's like the definition of a necessity._

 _My sister put a_ **_pink_ ** _comforter in my cart....pink Ducky!_

_How dare she!_

_I can't believe you're mocking me rn_

_I’m sorry princesa of the night that’s truly terrible tell her I said you could get a black one_

_-.-_

_I found a couch so comfortable I may never sleep in a bed again_

_I found sheets so comfortable I may never sleep on the couch again_

The rest of the time Alex spends lamenting Ducky not actually being there because she reckons (mocking aside) she wouldn’t have ended up with quite such bright color scheme had she actually gone shopping with her soulmate instead of Kara.

Without classes, Ducky’s doubled his hours between working a desk job at one of the precincts and walking the beat as an Auxiliary cop. Leaving long hours devoid of communication with an Alex who for the first time in years doesn’t actually have anything to do.

She’d missed the deadline for NCU’s summer classes somewhere in the shuffle and Kara leaves for Metropolis not too long after getting Alex settled in.

Alex would’ve gone with her but Kara wanted to spend some quality time with Clark up in the fortress of solitude. So Alex isn’t scheduled for a visit until the weeks leading into Kara’s official move into the dorms.

It’s far more free time than Alex really _wants_.

There’s only so many times Alex can go over her projected curriculum, determined to be finished with her dual doctoral degree by this time next year.

Officially National City University’s accelerated MD-PhD program is four years instead of six but it had long since been accepted that for Alex Danvers it’d be three.  Which obviously meant that Alex decided she would complete it in two and with her year of relevant classes and research work with Dr. Parker under her belt Alex sees no reason why she can’t be finished within the academic year give or take some summer and winter classes.  

Her heart isn’t quite into any passion project side experiments although she absolutely devotes an entire corner of her new apartment to a set-up that looks like something out of weird science with a sole purpose of distilling consumable alcohol with a frankly illegal proof.

The day after Kara’s departure comes an avalanche of phone calls from Eliza. Alex makes the mistake of answering the first but lets the rest go to voicemail.

Actually listening to those voicemails instead of just deleting them, Alex decides is an astounding error in judgment. She reaches for her bowl after the second one and actually contemplates going out to buy a bong after the fifth.

The voicemails run out after fourteen, maybe. Alex started drinking after the ninth and rather lost count.

She passes out more than falls asleep, a crossfaded mess.

When Alex wakes up Eliza’s words are rattling around her brain, her chest is heavy with recrimination and shame, the guilt of what would your father say blended with the outrage of the obvious manipulation. The bitterness over her mother’s ‘sudden change of heart’ concerning her geographic location, which really boils down to her preferential treatment of Kara is overwhelming.  

Alex reaches for the bottle before she even bothers sitting up properly, determined to drown all of it out.

The worst part is she doesn’t even particularly want to _be_ in National City, this place was never necessarily part of her plans. She will never admit it out loud but at this point, she’d probably be happier on the east coast with Kara.

The thing is, if nothing else Alex has her stubborn pride.

She won’t let her mother dictate how she lives her life anymore. Alex literally cannot fathom how Eliza can be operating without the slightest bit of appreciation for her previous actions, without so much as a hint of remorse.

Alex doesn’t let go of her whiskey as she heats up some leftover pizza or when she trudges to the bathroom. The bottle’s gone by the time Kara calls to gush about how amazing it is to spend time with Clark is.

Alex ‘mhmms’ and ‘sounds great Kara’s’ the whole time until Kara enthuses that she has to go because Clark is taking them to an all you can eat buffet where the owners are aliens themselves and they can actually eat all that they want.

Alex listens to the abrupt dial-tone longer than she cares to admit and has to shove down the reflexive concern at Kara exposing herself. At the very least she’s secure that her resolve to not cave to her mother’s whims won’t adversely affect Kara.

Why would she need Alex’s protection while she’s under Superman’s care?

Alex can’t imagine she would.

It’s the way things always should have been she muses as she methodically (in her mind anyway the alcohol has made her a bit clumsy) packs the largest pipe she owns. Kara’s with _Kal-El_ now, she doesn’t need Alex for anything more than an occasional sounding board.

Alex sees her phone flashing _birth giver_ and decrees her intention to smoke and/or drink herself into oblivion to her empty apartment.

A few hours and a run to the liquor store later she’s finished her second bottle of whiskey and is working her way through her fourth bowl of the day.

Alex would be hard pressed to give you her name if asked which is perfect, exactly what she was aiming for she tells the giant lemurs inside her television while giggling.  

She’s tripping over sounding out ‘Animal Planet’ to herself repeating it over and over again in amazement when she’s gripped by sudden blinding terror.

Alex had never experienced a ‘bad trip’ before not like when Emma ate too much of a weed brownie and kept insisting she was dying or Jordana and Hallie took a bad acid trip and were convinced giant spiders were trying to eat their faces.

And if this is what one feels like Alex never wants to experience one again.

There’s nowhere to hide in the miasma that has become her mind. No room for logic or rationality. There’s only fear and adrenaline that has no release as Alex sits rooted to her couch shaking.

She can hear screaming and feet pounding the pavement, things breaking and gunshots. She feels bruising pressure on the back of her neck and icy tendrils of dread creeping down her back.

There’s a strange buzzing noise filling her ears and interweaved through it all the most deranged laugh Alex has ever had the displeasure to hear.

It’s the most unsettling aspect of it all and she knows the sound will haunt her nightmares.

She doesn’t know how much time passes as she’s frozen in unending torment,  eventually, the alcohol in her system overrides anything else and she passes out for the second time in twenty-four hours.

Alex wakes up with a glaring headache and a vague sense of unease that won’t leave her but not many concrete memories after speaking with Kara. She doesn’t quite think anything of it as she tidies up the mess she made the previous day.

She also doesn’t think anything of lack of response to her latest attempt at communication with Ducky because to be completely honest Alex isn’t even sure what

_Can you hold your breath underwater so we can go see the osseous matter of the big lemurs that don’t exist any more?_

Is supposed to mean.

There’s also something about whether a ‘ _gargantuan zoboomafoo would be friends with Ducky, the cartoon Ducky not you soulmate Ducky or eat her’_ despite living on a diet of mostly leaves and possibly some smudges from tears over normal sized Zoboomafoo’s ‘untimely’ passing and how one would go about making a lemur immortal.

Alex can only surmise she spent a significant portion of yesterday watching some combination of Animal Planet, National Geographic, and PBS.

So it really doesn’t strike her as odd that her soulmate hadn’t responded to her barely coherent ramblings considering they left off yesterday with Ducky mentioning some volunteer auxiliary cop commitment for a parade.

But then it’s two days, three days, a week.  

It’s the longest they’ve gone without speaking since her sixteenth birthday and Alex is starting to get seriously worried.

It takes a bastion of self-control to not end up in a sad echo of her eight-year-old self, pleading for her soulmate to just tell her that they’re alright.

It’s almost two weeks of near constant smoking just to keep her hands from shaking before she sees a clearly accidental ink streak appear only to clumsily disappear just as quickly.

She pens a simple _Hey_ because what else is there to say when you’re delaying the inevitable.

She never receives a response.

And Alex wishes she wasn’t blindsided, curses her cynicism for never extending to her soulmate despite his history with the disappearing act.

Alex had somehow deluded herself into thinking she’d be prepared if it happened again, built up empty platitudes about loving and losing and any time being better than none.

There was no preparing.

And god did it _hurt._

So much worse than all those years ago when the fear and worry and her dad’s calming words soothed over everything else. The longer they spoke the further Alex was lulled into a false sense of security, chalking up years of silence to a child’s inability to deal with trauma.

Alex was sharp she noticed how Ducky never mentioned his own father.

They shared nearly everything and Alex truly believed that even if her soulmate never wanted her romantically that they had gotten to a place where they would at least always be there for each other.

Alex _really_ hates — no Alex _despises_ being proved wrong.

She ends up spending the remainder of the summer wandering around National City in a haze of drugs and alcohol. 

At first, it’s a few joints while exploring her new city. Walking its entirety, uncovering every secret it’s streets have to offer. 

She doesn’t drink in those early days.

Just keeps a list of places Kara would love to eat and sights she tries not to wish, hand in hand she could take Ducky to see.

She tries to keep up the artwork on her arms but with no one to help her, it’s mostly a mess of doodles and tangential rambling and she would give anything for a playful _Nerd_ to appear among the fray.

Alex dodges most of Eliza’s calls and masters talking to Kara like everything is achingly normal.

The Observatory her dad used to take her to is just shy of an hour walk from her apartment (it’s about a ten minute car ride quicker on her bike but Alex, Alex walks everywhere, it isn’t as if she’s got anything better to do).

She only goes the once, she doesn’t have the clearance to use the more advanced telescopes or to program in the coordinates that would show her familiar if literally alien star systems. Granted she could probably get it easily enough were she to name drop her mother or there’s a chance someone may even remember her from her trips with Jeremiah.

But Alex can’t bring herself to try. She’s had enough disappointment as of late.

Instead, National City's Museum of Natural History is next door to the California Science Center and Alex often takes refuge from the blazing desert heat and edgy idleness by getting lost in the familiarity of scientific exploration.

Somewhere along the way, she discovers National city's nightlife and by the time classes have begun Alex has been sleeping all day and partying all night.  

The vibe is different like nothing Alex experienced in Midvale or Stanford. It isn’t hard to find the kind of college parties she’d grown used to especially once classes have started up again but Alex finds herself immersed in the club scene instead.

She likes losing herself in the heavy bass and sweaty strangers, the atmosphere almost as intoxicating as the free drinks she never has trouble scoring.

The start of classes put a major crimp in her new party girl lifestyle and a cursing, stumbling Alex Danvers in last night's clothes reeking of tequila is not an uncommon sight in classes that start before nine in the morning.

That she’s still smarter than half the class even as mild intoxication gives way to a hangover is her saving grace.

Almost five months to the day she accepted her soulmate had gone MIA, Alex skips classes altogether. She hadn’t planned on it but she finds herself in a state of ennui she can’t shake so she settles into the bar on the corner nevermind that it’s ten am and the place technically isn’t even open yet.

The perks of being a tenant to the owner. She nurses a few whiskey’s more or less just moping in the corner until Joe kicks her out for some ‘fresh air’. She repeats this process in various bars until evening settles breathing life into National City’s after hours scene where the real carousing can begin.

Alex wakes up in her(thankfully dry) bathtub with a splitting headache and no memories after….shit 8pm...maybe, wearing clothes that are definitely not her own.

Alex climbs out of the bathtub gingerly and almost trips over a traffic cone….the fuck.

She slowly makes her way into the kitchen area leaning heavily on any furniture in her path. She grabs a glass filling it with water and draining it in one go before filling it again. She nurses this one, eyes closed and counter supporting her weight.

A scratching noise grabs her attention and she winces as her eyes pop open and sunlight assaults her senses.

Her vision clears and—

Alex closes her eyes. Opens them again. Nothing's changed.

Her apartment is covered in glitter, inflatable pool toys and Alex blinks, again, still wondering if she's hallucinating but no there is a rather large tortoise wearing a party hat chilling on her coffee table.

Alex has no idea how it got there but further perusal of her apartment finds supplies, a receipt and a pet ownership contract.

At least she didn't steal it from a zoo or something.

She also can't return it.

Who in their right mind sells a pet to what she can only surmise was a very inebriated person. What pet stores are even open after nine at night. Trying to look on the bright side she reasons at least it wasn’t something far more high maintenance like a puppy.

Alex spends the rest of the day catching up on classwork, researching tortoise care and cleaning her apartment. Well attempting to clean she reckons she’ll be finding glitter for the rest of eternity.

She’s dying to know how it actually got everywhere to begin with but no matter how hard wracks her brain there’s nothing but a black hole her memories can't escape from.

It’s hard to believe only months ago she had never blacked out from drinking and now she could no longer count on both hands nights she can’t recall no matter how hard she tries.

Thinking about it like that is disconcerting, to say the least.

Alex finds herself at one of life’s crossroads that won’t become apparent as such until years down the road, if it ever does at all.

There was no denying, Alex mused as she sat cross-legged on the floor feeding Littlefoot, she’d decided for a name,  a cactus pad that the night had been somewhat of a wake-up call.

The question was whether or not the day would be a turning point.

The answer was yes.

Unfortunately, it would not be a turning for the better as anticipated because if Alex thought nothing could prepare her for her soulmate’s vanishing act take two well...

Alex stares at her hand and comes to the conclusion that universe had a sadistic sense of humor.

_I had fun tonight hot stuff call me xoxo ~Trina_

The world narrows to just the words burning a hole in her palm and Alex feels like her lungs are full of water.

She grabs for the arm of the couch but it slips through her fingers. Alex finds herself crashing to the floor but she may as well be struggling to surface from a killer wipe out on her surfboard.

Being tossed mercilessly beneath the waves, precious seconds between living and dying has nothing on what she's feeling in this moment.

It was one thing for her soulmate to cut off communication. It was quite another for someone else's words to show up on her skin.

It just wasn’t _done._

Even if one didn’t believe in soulmates it was major taboo to write on another person without their express permission.

Sometimes even at request people were hesitant. Alex had run into this a few times seeking help for her ‘sleeves’ when Kara wasn’t around.

The words itch and Alex’s hand is streaked red from absentmindedly clawing at her skin.

Alex knows medically speaking a person’s heart can’t physically break and yet she would swear it was happening.

The tears come all at once, in heaving sobs as she collapses in on herself.

Some three thousand miles away Lucy in tip top shape doubles over gasping for breath halfway through her twenty mile run to the confusion of her instructors.

Alex cries for hours before the tears dry up, without that distraction the rage settles. Alex is reeling and doesn’t know what to _do_ with herself. She feels like she’s about to vibrate out of her skin and she needs an outlet.

Ironically all of her go-to's are just too fucking peaceful and she doesn’t want the calming ocean waves or heightened serenity of smoking a bowl. She doesn’t want the comfort of the stars or familiarity of science.

She wants destruction, she wants to taste the ashes of her love in ruins. 

She finds herself in a seedy bar across town. She orders their most expensive bottle of whiskey, a down payment, justification or penance.

Alex chugs half of it in one go and then polishes off the rest of bottle as she observes the room.

She locates the biggest, meanest looking fucker in the place with the worst attitude, marches straight up to him and slugs him right in the face.

It’s dead silent for three agonizing slow-motion seconds before all hell breaks loose. The place erupts in a full-scale bar brawl in less time than it took for Alex to throw the first punch.

Some guy pulls her out of the fracas just as the cops show up and she shoves him up against a brick wall two blocks away high on adrenaline and pain.

It’s a split second decision, throw one more punch and savor the sting of her already split knuckles or pull him in for a kiss and reap an entirely different sort of pain.  

She kisses him rough and deep, all clashing teeth and tongues. It’s uncomfortable and wrong and somewhere in the back of her mind, there’s a whimper because it’s far from the first kiss Alex deserves.

She pulls back, plastering on her best approximation of a seduction face and asks if he wants to take her back to his place.

She’s a car careening straight towards a cliff at dangerous speeds. Everything feels so desperate but compounding the pain she’s in seems like the better alternative to the numbness she feels creeping along her edges.

The lust in his eyes seems like the affirmative answer she’s seeking but he stalls pulling her along because, “Wait, what’s your soulmate deal? I’m not looking for any drama.”

It’s like a bucket of cold water and Alex draws back as if physically slapped. Her palm burns, the words smoldering though they been washed away and Alex turns on her heel disappearing into the night.

The nameless stranger doesn’t bother calling after her.

Alex wakes up in her own apartment with her memories intact and skin sticking to her sheets at multiple points from dried blood that mostly isn't hers.

She drags herself to class and two missed days feel like weeks but she can’t bring herself to care. She doesn’t even bother to drop her things off afterward choosing to pay the exorbitant fee at the coat check of her favorite club.

She drinks and she dances and she flirts and she doesn’t decline when some guy offers her a line of coke.

She leans in with more finesse than her tequila addled self can appreciate, letting her hand linger as she takes the rolled dollar bill from his fingertips.

  * Permanent damage to the blood vessels surrounding the heart and brain.
  * High blood pressure, leading to heart attacks, strokes, and death
  * Liver, kidney and lung damage
  * Destruction of tissues in nose if inhaled



Her medically inclined brain runs through some of the possible repercussions in the background fighting through the haze of alcohol to assert maybe this isn’t the best idea.

She bends down and seamlessly snorts the thin white line without hesitation.

Alex feels the claps on her back and the raucous cheers, a ‘damn that was hot’ and ‘woah that was your first time?’

The strobe lights in the club create a dizzying kaleidoscope with the thrumming bassline.

Everything is sharper and clearer and _more._

Alex wonders if this is how Kara felt when she crashed on earth and got her first taste of the yellow sun’s rays. Alex feels like she could run to Metropolis, climb up to the fortress of solitude with her bare hands.

Alex feels like she could _fly_.

  * Increased frequency of risky behavior



Another side effect. Alex reckons she’s beyond that without the drugs anyway.

Alex wakes up in a bed that isn’t her own with more energy than she knows what to with and nausea that she pretends is from her nonexistent hangover.

She rinses and repeats.

The semester disappears in a haze of partying. Once upon a time, Alex would have spent every spare moment outside of class and some carefully allocated down time in the lab running tests and experiments.

Now she barely even makes it to the classes themselves. The ones she does are more often than not spent with her passed out across her desk. Her professors are less than impressed with her behavior and not even her innate intellect is enough to save her this time.

Of course, it’s not like Alex _cares._

Except for when she does, when the voices in her head that take on Eliza’s timber tell her she’s a failure, an embarrassment to the family name and her dead father, that she’s worthless.

She drinks even more to drown them out and the vicious cycle repeats itself until Alex is sitting on a pile of academic probation letters and broken dreams.

The end of the semester arrives without fanfare and to Alex’s immense surprise she only one fails one class, attains a B in another and well the remaining four classes garnered ‘incompletes’.

Not being outright failed in those four classes presents an opportunity to salvage her academic career but Alex doesn’t _want_ the benefit of the doubt inherent in the ‘incompletes’ stamped across her transcripts.

She doesn’t want to flunk out either.

Pretending the problem didn’t exist is her chosen course of action for the time being.

She drinks hard the night grades are posted even for her, mixing the drinks with her somewhat usual line or two of coke until she's totally spun out.

Flying high, chasing that feeling from the one time she literally flew.

She thinks she's close so she snorts one more line and then another.

And wakes up three days later just south of the border with no phone or identifying information not entirely sure how she came to be there. She manages to cross back over into California with far more ease than if she hadn’t been a young, _white_ , attractive co-ed.

Four days since she’d last been in her apartment see her dragging herself back into the building and up the stairs determined to sleep for a week, only to stop short in the hallway.

She shakes her head worried she was having some delayed hallucinatory reaction from the additional drugs she in all probability consumed but no Kara is fast asleep leaning up against her door.

“Kara?” her sister jolts awake scrambling to her feet.

“Alex! You weren’t home, I was worried! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine Kar but what are _you_ doing here?”

Alex’s head is pounding and she loses half the words of Kara’s verbose explanation as she opens the door and makes a beeline for _legal_ over the counter painkillers.

Alex doesn’t mean to cut her sister off it’s just in the avalanche of words she hadn’t gotten an answer to _what_ Kara was doing back.

Kara scuffs her shoe on the ground and it’s hard to remember that she could effortlessly punt a car several city blocks. Then she speaks and Alex grips the counter hard enough that if she were Kara it would crumble.

Alex needs a minute to remind herself that Kara doesn’t mean anything by it.

She couldn’t possibly know how much her innocent words would cut Alex to the core because apparently Metropolis and she just weren’t compatible.

But Kara’s exact words are, “It’s just everything’s so fast and it’s harder to remember it’s supposed to be an effort to keep up.”

And for someone who hasn’t been to the ocean in ages, Alex spends a worrying amount of time feeling like she’s underwater.

Alex is barely managing to stay afloat and of course, Kara came back to her because she was doing _too_ well.

Alex’s grasp of the several languages she speaks all desert her as she stands there gaping at Kara nowhere near functional enough at the moment to formulate a response.

Kara’s head tilts and Alex bites down on the wave of panic because she cannot handle Kara asking her if she’s _really_ okay, right now.

She’s saved by the tortoise.

Drunken misadventure or not Alex had grown quite fond of Littlefoot but never as much as she had in this moment because Kara breaks eye contact and dissolves into a series of squeals as she’s thoroughly distracted by the ambling of the tortoise looking for some food.

Speaking of which, fuuuuuck.

Alex points out where the food is kept when Kara bounces asking if she can feed 'the cutie’ while cursing herself the entire time because what kind of asshole essentially disappears for days when they have an animal depending on them. 

She finds herself grateful she ended up with a pet that’s so hearty and therefore not dead because _she’s_  a fuck up.

Alex leaves Kara to her own devices and faceplants into the heaven that is her bed.

The sleep she was desperate for minutes ago eludes her as self-flagellation gives way the realization that Kara was actually _here_.

Not for a visit or a vacation but to stay.

Kara was staying, transferring to NCU after a year at Stanhope with two years worth of credits and temporary summer housing.

Alex wishes she had stayed away.

She feels guilty at the thought of course but her downward spiral was so much easier when she didn't have to worry about pretending she was perfectly fine for Kara's sake.

Doing it over the phone versus in person where Kara could pop by anytime were two very different things.

In the following days, Kara gets a job as a waitress at some place called Noonan’s. It keeps her busy enough that Alex’s guilt ebbs as she sinks further into her self-destructive patterns.

With Kara’s presence hovering in the background Alex is at least attempting to clear her incompletes but it’s so much easier said than done in the crumbling rubble of her life.

She pretends not to notice the concern burning brightly in Kara’s gaze when Alex stumbles to their meet-ups late or forgets about them all together. 

Kara starts showing up at Alex’s first with coffee under the guise of caffeinating Alex for their exploits but Alex sees the gears turning as she tries to figure Alex out.

And Alex tries to play it cool but even second nature lies are clumsy when you’re still drunk at nine in the morning and running on no sleep. So Alex forgets that when Kara teases her about ‘synthetic molecular blah blah’ it isn’t that Kara doesn’t _understand_ what she’s doing.

It’s that Kara Danvers hates science because Kara Zor-El is a scientific genius dropped on a planet with downright primitive knowledge by her standards.

Kara wears the mocking confusion like her glasses and cardigans because she can’t very well rewrite accepted scientific ‘fact’ (she had tried and it ended with her in remedial classes until Eliza had sorted it out). Ignoring it was easier than raging or crying over how something as concrete as facts were erased along with everything else when Krypton was destroyed.

And Alex used to being ‘the smart one’ in most situations fails to remember this crucial truth.

Her brain is still fuzzy and operating far below maximum capacity when she haltingly pulls ‘cardiac bioelectric systems’ out of her ass which has nothing to do with anything she’s currently working nor is it likely to blow-up.

She realizes her mistake only when she registers that the smile has completely disappeared off her sister’s face. Alex curses her inability to not mess up a single goddamn thing as Kara seems to withdraw into herself.

It’s Kara, so it wouldn’t be hard to fix, a phone call to the ‘lab’ and a peace offering of the proffered fried sugar is all it would take.

What comes out is, “We’ll talk later?”

Alex watches her go and doesn’t even wince when her ribs groan from Kara hugging her just a bit too tight. It’s the least she deserves.

Kara’s tiny but sincere ‘I love you’ hangs in the air after she’s gone and Alex can’t help but feel she doesn’t deserve that at all.

Not twenty minutes later her phone rings and Alex half-heartedly curses her sister. When Eliza has ever _helped_ a situation like this where Alex is concerned since Kara’s been on earth is a mystery but then Kara’s relationship with the woman was vastly different from her own.

And Kara didn’t always _get_ the differences.

Which is why Alex picks up the phone against her better judgment and is greeted with, “You are supposed to be looking out for your sister Alexandra so why am I getting a phone call saying she’s worried about _you_?”

She’ll give Kara this at least she hadn’t provided any details meaning Alex is able to brush it off citing a misunderstanding that she’ll take care of. She lets her mother rant until she runs out of steam.

They hang up and Alex gingerly sets her phone on the table despite wanting to chuck it across the room.

Eliza never once even asked if she was actually okay.

Alex’s demons are clamoring like they often do after speaking to her mother nevermind they started even earlier because she knows she’ll never be the daughter her mother wants but she's used to having other things to fall back on.

Kara who she’s been pushing away, and pride in her academics, a solace in her independent research and she had Ducky.

Ducky who hasn’t spoken to her in a year. Ducky who let someone else mark them making it abundantly clear six months ago that they were nothing...

That night Alex reaches the magic number of drinks where she can’t keep the smile off her face if she tried. She escapes into the music her body an extension of the beat and lets everything else melt away.

At some point hands sneak around her waist, she ignores it. It happens often enough in the crush of bodies in the heart of the dance floor. She pulls back when they start to roam and recognizes the guy who was buying her drinks.

She extricates herself from his grip, tonight wouldn’t be one of those nights. she wants to chase this high as far as she can. When he persists she just leaves the club determined to find somewhere else where she hasn’t made any _friends._

She just has to stop by her car to swap out her bag first.

 

************************************

 

Alex thought she knew what rock bottom felt like she was wrong.

This was rock bottom.

She was so spectacularly screwed and all she could do was bury her face in her hand. She was looking at actual fucking jail time, not just a night sleeping it off in the drunk tank and a fine but actual fucking prison.

Sure she was a first-time ‘offender’ but she was under no illusions. The courts generally frowned especially hard on assaulting a police officer.

She was still having trouble wrapping her mind around just how she got here.

Her mother would probably blame her ‘smart mouth’ but she was not about to stand there and get arrested for driving under the influence when her car door wasn’t even _unlocked._

Mix that together with an overzealous rookie who did not appreciate having her extensively explain her rights to him and her high levels of intoxication….

And the next thing Alex knew Officer Tryhard was clutching his broken nose and she was pinned against a squad car being read her rights by his partner.

The last thing she expected as she cooled her heels in this charming little cell was to suddenly end up in the plot of some melodramatic spy flick.

She wasn’t sure how else to describe some mysterious ‘men in black’ type showing up with an offer that would ‘change her life’.

He knew far more about her than any stranger had any business knowing but he also bailed her out on the sole condition that she think about his offer.

“We need _you_ , Alex.”

His words were a siren’s call and that in and of itself was enough to makes Alex’s hackles rise.

Alex paces the length of her apartment staring at the business card in her hand. If you could even call it that. It was plain white card stock completely blank save for a set of coordinates.

Coordinates that if she was not mistaken were smack in the middle of the damn desert.

And Alex Danvers was so very rarely mistaken.

Every one of his carefully crafted words sunk into Alex’s skin completely bypassing her shoddy armor and settling so that she could recall each and every one even hours later and despite her hangover.

It was everything she longed to hear from _anyone_ when Kara arrived on her doorstep nearly a decade ago. There was also the fact that it presented a solution to almost all of her current problems.

All she had to do was take a chance.

And hope the universe wasn’t about to pull another fast one on her.

In the end, Alex just tosses on some clothes and heads out the door before she loses her nerve.

In reality, her decision had already been made hours ago in that cage.

She figures being the victim of a serial killer is a better fate than the one that would befall her should Eliza find out about the arrest anyway.

The place was exactly what she expected, like something out of a conspiracy theorist's wet dream.

Remote location, check. Secret underground bunker, check. Militaristic looking fuckers in all black fatigues with excessive weaponry, check and check.

The man from the jail—Director Hank Henshaw meets her topside to escort her into the base.

And the inside looks like fanart of the goddamn Batcave, because of course it does.

This time she’s given the general call to arms speech. It seemed the creepy personal one was only the hook to get her out there. Then again Henshaw didn’t seem the type prone to repeating himself.

Defending the planet. Saving the world.

They were good campaign slogans. Shiny and enticing for recruiting.

Alex watches as eight heavily armed black-clad individuals escort what has to be an at least twelve foot alien in glowing clearly custom cuffs.

‘Fighting attacks from creatures from all over the universe’. Aliens. Her job would be fighting— hunting aliens.

Alex thinks of a scared little girl without a world who would never intentionally hurt a fly but was physically capable of razing entire cities in minutes.

If there are others like her, like Superman and thanks to her parents Alex knows there are. The universe was a vast place and Krypton was hardly the only other planet capable of interstellar travel.

If there were other aliens out there without the innate goodness of her sister and powers to rival a Kryptonian’s?

It wouldn’t just be the earth that wasn’t safe, it would be Kara. If nothing from earth could harm her then what would happen if her unprepared little sister ran into something that wasn’t from earth either.

Alex Danvers may not have been very sober recently, she may have a shiny new criminal record and be failing out of school, she may never be the perfect daughter or a good enough soulmate apparently but Alex Danvers was not stupid either.

And what better way to protect her sister than to train in fighting the only creatures capable of harming her while _also_ making herself invaluable the only people who knew her sister was one of them and specialized in alien detention.

And maybe, just maybe she would find something that was solely _hers_ along the way.

“When do I start?”

Henshaw gives her the weekend to get her affairs in order.

The hardest part is convincing an already suspicious Kara that she is going off on a totally above board research trip in which she will be mostly uncontactable for the next six-ish months.

She makes the decision not to tell her mother and swears Kara to secrecy.

Her sister grumbles and attempts to wiggle out of it because she hates lying but in the end, she still would never break the sanctity of a pinky swear so Alex trusts Eliza won’t find out.

Alex gifts Kara her apartment far sooner than either of them anticipated when Alex said Kara wouldn’t have to wait too long for her to be done with it. She packs up her things to leave in storage only realizing as she does so just how much of the apartment was all _Kara_ to begin with.

Littlefoot gets left in Kara’s capable care after Alex reiterates _again_  that, “No, Littlefoot cannot have strawberries I don’t care how cute or sad the face she makes when you eat them is.”

There’s one last thing she has to do before cramming as much sister time as possible into the remaining thirty-six hours(and maybe she pretended not to notice Kara using her powers a bit to speed things along in order to maximize their time together because ‘I just got back and now _you’re_ leaving.)

Alex told Kara she had to go pick up some personal effects from the lab which wasn’t untrue but there was very much a specific something she was looking for.

Kara pouted but relented quick enough opting to use the time to pick up an inordinate amount of take-out.

One trip to the lab and a fair amount of swearing later and Alex still hasn't found what she was looking for.

Alex also has no idea how she hadn't managed to be banned from the lab over the last few months considering drunkenly messing with the equipment was severely frowned upon.

Still, she knows she stashed it somewhere—Aha.

The jar sits unassuming buried in the back of a filing cabinet with abandoned paperwork, a half eaten sandwich that's long since become a science project in its own right and some empty beakers.

Alex ditched it there when she sobered up and realized it was all but useless—until now.

The compound was developed in a drunken fit of heartbroken desperation.

A second and third mystery phone number had appeared on Alex's hand and she just wanted them to stop.

All she managed to do was create a sort of lotion that repelled ink, paint, marker, blood..water it was still a work in progress. Well now it would be, she had discarded it as useless since all it did was prevent communication on her side.

The phone numbers kept coming.

Now though, Alex didn't know much about this training she'd be receiving but she very much doubted it would come without its share of physical battle scars.

Not to mention writing on herself was second nature to her at this point.

This whole secret agent thing was a clean slate.

Alex planned on making it so completely literally.

With one final glance around the lab, she never quite made a mark in Alex hurries to meet up with Kara one step closer, to her second chance.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst? 
> 
> I had a lot of fun trying to make canon contradictions from the show/deleted scenes and comic tie-in actually work mostly wrt Alex and Kara's college stuff and the timeline. I know it's au so it shouldn't matter but I enjoyed it. 
> 
> The response to this story is still leaving me speechless and I hope the people who have been super excited for Alex to figure out her soulmates a girl/Maggie don't hate me too much for dragging this out. I had a vision for Alex/Maggie meeting up like in canon without knowing they're soulmates but didn't expect it to take quite this many words(that continue to grow) to get there I promise a happy ending for what it's worth just gotta wade through the angst first...
> 
> If you feel the need to yell at me about the chapter this is where you can find me [change-the-rules](http://change-the-rules.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pops up over a year later with an update* *scurries back into the hole I crawled out from*
> 
> so I'm not gunna do my epically long A/N thingy I just wanted to thank everyone who's left comments and popped by tumblr to ask if this story would be updating, I can't promise there will be another one soon, RL hasn't been super kind but I promise this story is not being abandoned and will eventually be finished but on that note there will eventually be 2 seperate verisons posted of this fic, I was debating whether or not to post anything until I finished and edited the story but I decided that not much would change in this and previous chapters so I figured it's been long enough I should post something.
> 
> Basically long story short this was always intended to be a alex/lucy/maggie fic but one of my ambigous tags about it got eaten and despite hints the story's since ended up on several strictly sanvers rec lists (which im honored about btw) so I decided based on the shows handling of sanvers and the people who may have found this fic on one of those lists I would post a version of this story that was strictly sanvers. So while I would really love if y'all gave this a chance as i originally imagined, I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea so no worries about the 'new' old tag that's popped up there now
> 
> So uhm yea thanks for sticking with me, I hope you enjoy, and feed the bard if you can?

Alex hefts the huge bag she packed for show over her shoulder batting away Kara’s attempts at help. She almost wishes her sister hadn’t insisted on seeing her off meaning she’d have to stash the damn thing in her car for the duration of training.

But Kara’s eyes are misty and damned if hers aren’t a bit as well. So Alex pushes past the twinge of annoyance to pull Kara closer, hugging her sister as tightly as Kara can’t let herself.

Then Alex says goodbye for the third time, trying not to roll her eyes when Kara picks up Littlefoot trying to get the poor tortoise to 'wave goodbye’.

Alex's solo drive out to the desert is tranquil and she pauses to watch the tiny swirling clouds of dust settle after pulling the car over a few miles from the entrance as per the instructions she was given. There are a few other cars similarly parked despite the early hour. Alex eyes them wairly, only releasing a small breath when they appear to be already vacated.  

The cars remind her she has somewhat of a schedule to keep but her body isn't quite cooperating. 

She stares at her arms, bare for the first time she can remember since just after her father died.

Her skin looks so pale.

Lifeless, she tries not to think.

Her new and improved ‘soulmark repellent' had already been aplied before she left.

Once Alex realised the fact that it repelled blood could actually come in handy she tinkered with the formula a bit.  

It had been trickier than she had anticipated getting it to function precisely. Yet nowhere near as impossible as preventing the marks all together had been. This task required only straightforward science with all variables accounted for, no mysteries.

It still took some trial and error naturally, attempt number three rendered the repellent useless as she ended up simply sweating it off and attempt number eight had turned her skin violet.

Her final attempt had held up _too_ well as she had been unable to remove it at all by conventional means.

In the end that hitch proved to be exactly what Alex was looking for to make the repellent as durable as possible for long term active use with a contingency for whatever crazy she was about to walk into.

She simply needed to make a separate compound in order to wash the soulmark repellent off.

Now in the remnants of her success the sight of so much blank skin on her own person unsettles her.

There’s one swath Alex has left intentionally uncovered. A large patch on the inside of her right forearm that she's currently hovering with a permanent marker.

Alex wanted a clean slate but she wasn't Ducky, she couldn't 'leave’ without a goodbye of sorts but also a reminder to herself.

It had taken her a while before she decided what she was going to say. A tiny, tiny part of her considered doing something drastic. It had worked the last time, albeit accidentally.

She had been toying with the idea more and more recently before being recruited by the DEO.

In the end she settles on cryptic and maybe just a tad pointed if her soulmate wasn't too obtuse to get the message.

If her soulmate even cared.

**_Astra inclinant, sed non obligant._ **

  ************************

Training doesn't start out anything like Alex expected.

After being shown to what will be their bunks for the duration of their training period and given black BDUs they’re led to a large darkened room where someone turns on an honest to god film projector like it’s the 1940’s.

The reel starts rolling beeping out the classic number countdown. Alex’s eyebrow hikes when a voice that wouldn’t be misplaced in WWII propaganda drones on about the inception of the Department of Extra-Normal Operations……..in _1980_.

A recruit in the middle of them room lets out a snore as the history of the D.E.O followed by policy and procedure scrolls across the screen. Alex loses track of the time as the images blend together, so much video footage Alex feels like her brain is melting. (and she is _not_ looking forward to eventually reading the actual manual if all of _this_ is the cliffnotes version.)

The music changes jarring several people from their slumber and suddenly Alex is staring up at a life size image of her cousin, Kara’s cousin she reminds herself.

And Alex is intrigued, not by Clark obviously but by the information this organization has on him. Granted she probably shouldn't be too surprised given how her first conversation with Director Henshaw went.

It still catches her off guard when they mention her parents and the work they did with Superman’s developing powers. Not by name, but with enough detail, Alex is confident she'd be able to locate them if they were complete strangers. It sets her on edge because no one was supposed to know about her family’s connection to the man of steel.

The anonymity was one of the reasons they were even able to take Kara _Zor El_ in.

So when the voice droning on from the speakers starts to preface the event that triggered the D.E.O’s expansion and move of permanent headquarters to this very desert base had occurred twenty-four years _after_ Superman’s arrival on earth…

The pencil in Alex’s hand snaps.

Eons pass in the reality of a few short seconds as Alex contemplates what it means that Kara’s identity has been common knowledge to an entire classified government agency.

That her entire life for the last near decade has revolved around protecting a secret that was common— no taught knowledge to...Alex does some quick calculations based on the number of fellow recruits surrounding her and the breath leaves her lungs when she comes up with a number in the thousands of people over the years.

She almost misses the subsequent information as the video continues to play displaying an image of a behemoth alien spaceship. Almost, but the introduction of Fort Rozz a maximum security prison more specifically the descriptor Kyrptonian jolts her from her spiraling thoughts.

Alex gets lost in the wealth of information, thousands of the galaxy’s worst criminals escaped onto earth when the spaceship they were imprisoned on that was supposed to be eternally suspended in the phantom zone crashed.  

Kara’s name is never once mentioned.

It isn’t until years later after the reveal that Hank Henshaw was actually J’onn J’onzz that Alex realizes how much J’onn had done to honor Jeremiah’s dying request to take care of his daughters.

Eventually the lights click back on but Alex barely registers the change in atmosphere. She’s too busy being caught up in the warring sets of ideologies parading through her brain.

The D.E.O for all the talk of protecting earth from alien invasion also uses phrases like ‘monitoring their presence’ and even without the in depth history lesson she just sat through Alex knows the weaponry isn’t just for show.

If she stays, if she passes whatever this first test is Alex will step out from this bunker in a few months time a soldier.

If someone had asked her yesterday Alex would have said she was no stranger to making difficult decisions but she knows she has never faced one quite like this.

Amongst the data the D.E.O was able to salvage from Fort Rozz was a nearly complete prisoner manifest that listed species alongside names. The D.E.O doesn’t have extensive research persay but they certainly have large quantities of it, basic physiology on most of the species some of which Alex herself hasn’t even heard of. Abilities, strengths, weaknesses are the focus of what they do have.

Alex is willing to bet she walked into this room with more pre-existing knowledge of alien species than any of her peers.

Only now she isn’t sure that’s an _advantage_ because Alex knew that the K’hund came from a dark dismal world where the sun was perpetually eclipsed by its own moon and that their civilization was built around warring tribes but now she also knows that the easiest way to incapacitate one is a blow to a soft spot behind the ear.

That Hellgrammites were a large insectoid species with shapeshifting abilities and a biological chlorine foundation. That their social structure was built around their nocturnal natures but now she also knew just how lethal the stingers they could eject from their body were.

Alex knows that there isn’t quite a word in English for what the air smelled like on Krypton. She knows that they didn’t have birds but they did have singing flowers, which would softly serenade guests at Kryptonian dinner parties.

She knows that the destruction of an entire planet is far too quiet to ever encompass the gravitas of the moment.

And now, Alex knows that from that destruction spawned a mineral, the only in existence capable of harming her little sister.

So Alex can’t turn back now, knows she has to succeed, knows that this is the only way to truly protect Kara. Besides she can hardly just go back to her life and pretend like she doesn't know there are thousands of superpowered criminals lying in wait around the country.

Still she spares a thought for her father and his stories, for his reverence of all life human and alien alike.

She pushes down the voice that wonders if this would finally be the step too far for her father’s ‘unconditional’ love. Alex would like to think he would value her intent over the method but she whispers ‘Dad please forgive me’ under her breath just in case.

Her musings are interrupted when an agent drops a scantron on her desk and Alex is starting to worry about premature wrinkle lines from the frequency of her eyebrow raises.  

She glances around the room and notices a few recruits haven’t even stirred from their sleep as the scantrons were laid out next to them, some are visibly panicking while others are clearly irritated. A few like herself are scanning the room trying to get a read on the situation.

A thick booklet full of questions on the video footage they just watched starts landing on desks next and Alex smirks as grumbles and sounds of distress fill the room.

Alex methodically works her way through the test keeping an eye out for code or hidden messages. Something seems off about a covert government agency using a basic comprehension and retention standardized test for their first act of training.

Alex is among the first to finish naturally, so after combing through everything one final time but still not finding anything more than face-value she sits back and observes the room.

The guy in front of her has his feet kicked up on the table, arms folded behind his head and Alex is nauseated by the cocky smirk she can feel even though all she’s looking at the back of his head.  

Meanwhile, the girl next to her looks like she’s gritting her teeth and powering through a nervous breakdown and there’s someone in the corner literally crying though Alex can’t make out who.

The loud scraping of chair interrupts the ambient noise of the room as the recruit who ‘caught the most z’s’ decides to throw a tantrum because he can't answer any of the questions. Which he deems 'bullshit’ and not 'what he signed up for. He hurls the booklet across the room and Henshaw doesn't even blink when it crashes into the wall near his head.

Alex doesn't miss the director's slight nod to the camera blinking in the upper corner of the room as the (ex Alex reckons) recruit storms out.

And that’s when it hits Alex that this has nothing to do with anything that could be measured by these scantrons.

Henshaw’s unmoving countenance remains stoic at the front of the room where he’s been positioned for the entirety of however many hours they’ve been down here and Alex _knows_ this is some sort of bizarre psychological test.

What’s wrong with standard run of the mill pysch evals Alex couldn’t say.

Privately though based off observed patterns thus far Alex is pretty sure this organization was simply built on a flair for the dramatics.

Which seems counterproductive to a covert black ops organization but what does she know she’s just a science nerd.

Besides she certainly wouldn’t place any bets on herself sticking around after getting her head shrunk. So it’s not like she was complaining about the weirdness just observing it…

For a split second she thinks she sees Director Henshaw’s lip twitch as if fighting off a smile but she blinks and it’s gone.

Soon after, they’re separated into groups and to Alex’s surprise fed. She hadn’t even realized how hungry she was and hopes that the entirety of training isn’t spent without access to clocks because it’s really fucking with her.

Before long however, Alex forgets about the concept of time entirely finding herself far too busy to give it any real thought.

They regroup in an area that looks a ‘ninja warrior’ stumbled into the room of requirement. Alex is confident in her analogy entirely due to Ducky's obsession with the Japanese reality show meaning Alex had seen more than her fair share of the competition.

What follows is a grueling session testing the baseline of their strength, agility and endurance. Alex thought she was in shape from years of competitive surfing and all the walking she did around National City.

She was wrong.

Alex finds herself next to the same girl she was seated beside earlier as they both double over gasping after an intense bout of cardio.

Hannah introduces herself and Alex blames the stitch in her side for her shortness of breath when their hands meet.

Alex is glad Hannah’s not among the handful of already rejected recruits as the girl explains she was worried because she’s never been a good test taker.  

It bodes well for her future here Alex muses that Mr. ‘I’m a grown man who thinks throwing a tantrum is an acceptable way to express myself’ and Mr. ‘thinks he’s god’s gift to humanity’ are among those who haven’t made the cut while Hannah got to stay.

She spares a thought for whether or not the rejects got a ‘MIB flashy thing’ type treatment or the if D.E.O had a more subtle, less pop culturalesqe way of making sure disgruntled former recruits didn’t spill any of the abundant classified information they were exposed to.

Again Alex thinks of standard psychological evaluations and more covert tactics for a first exercise. She still really can't see a reason beyond theatrics for the choice.

When they move on to the next order of business after the strenuous morning, Alex is so grateful just to be sitting down. Staring at a computer which is at least something she’s familiar with is an added bonus.  Without any distractions until their next directive Alex notices the slight tremor in her hands and that’s around the time she realizes it’s been at least three days since her last drink.

The realization is as much a shock to the system as the absence of the alcohol itself. Her mind’s been so preoccupied these last few days that her usual demons have taken the backseat in her thoughts.

Alex can’t remember the last time that happened.

An agent walks to the front of the room drawing everyone’s attention and introduces themself as Agent Vasquez.

Before long Alex finds herself buried in some decryption algorithm that makes her really wish she had actually asked her comp sci major friends to teach her how to hack.

"The stars guide us, they do not bind us."

Alex shoots her head up, Vasquez's voice startling her from her concentration in trying to force the program into doing what she wants it to. 

Alex’s fingers move of their own accord to trace the barely faded words meticulously imprinted on her arm.

She didn't have a contingency plan for this. The words were supposed to fade from her skin while Ducky faded from her life.

It was supposed to be poetic or something (don't ask her she maintains she’s never been the artist in the family.) More importantly no one was supposed to comment on it.

“They teach Latin in secret agent boot camp too?” There’s no time to tamp down on the defensiveness that displays itself as full on hostility but Vasquez doesn't even blink just volleys back without hesitation.

“Duh, comes after the lessons in ancient Sumerian.” Vasquez smirks and Alex’s shoulders sag in something akin to relief.  

It’s the quiet start to their friendship.

Alex learns there isn’t a fraternization policy persay, the societal conventions surrounding soulmates heads off most potential issues and the thought of filling out a pile of paperwork for Pam in human resources taller than the director himself typically takes care of the rest.

Still most agents prefer not to get attached to new recruits in any manner with the turnover rate. The majority opting to keep their distance until the dust settles and the new batch of agents are instated.

Alex asks Vasquez why then, they've broken the unspoken rule to befriend _her._

Vasquez’s simple, assured response that they know Alex is going to make it through the program nearly causes tears to prick at the corner of her eyes. No one besides Kara has so staunchly believed in her.

Not since her dad.

Not since Ducky.

As their friendship unfolds Alex even discovers the real reason Vasquez knows Latin is because their wife is an art historian who's currently working as a museum curator.

************************

After a month or so at the DEO there isn’t a mode of transportation Alex can’t pilot or a set of restraints she can't get out of.

She has more certifications and skill sets than she ever imagined (and as an overachieving perfectionist she dreamed of accomplishing quite a lot) but training still isn’t quite what she’d been expecting.

And then she wakes up in a jungle with only dental floss, a pencil sharpener and chewing gum on her person, not counting the safety pin attaching the note to her fatigues that only reads ‘make it home alive’ with the coordinates echoing the business card that started all of this.

Her first thought is dramatic fucking assholes.

Followed by a rundown of her supplies, options and statistics of successfully not dying.

And then it’s mostly a steady stream of both mental and verbal swearing in every language she can think of as she treks her way through this pop survival quiz.

When Alex eventually makes it back to base in mostly one piece (fucking nature) Vasquez is waiting with a cheeseburger and Alex is so elated she proposes marriage on the spot to her highly amused friend.

With the most intense training exercise by far behind them the recruitment class is nearly halved and the real training begins.

Alex spends twelve hours a day, seven days a week in the training room.

The strength and cardio sessions become fewer giving way to a combat heavy schedule.

The basics flow into the advanced study of various disciplines and practices weaved together to create the most effective style that is each individual’s own.

Four to six hours after Alex steps out of the ring are dedicated to school work

The Director apparently arranged it so that as long as she faithfully e-mailed updates of her dissertation, completed the labs, online testing and showed up to her final presentation, Alex could obtain her degrees mostly from the comfort of the desert base.

At least an hour of remaining time added up throughout the day is spent listening to Hannah tell her she's pushing herself too hard. Alex jokes around that it’s practically like having her sister there and doesn’t get why the comparison causes her stomach to turn unpleasantly.

Four months later and Alex is officially Dr. Dr. Danvers but she still hasn’t managed to beat director Henshaw in a fight.

But then neither has anyone else. If Henshaw was intense out of the ring there isn’t quite a word what he’s like inside it.

No one can figure out how he sees _every_ move coming.

Another month passes and instead of school-related lab work, in the time not spent sparring or running drill after drill Alex learns to beat a lie detector and accurately impersonate other branches of the government. She can field strip any gun handed to her in under a minute and has gotten the chance to reverse engineer several alien weapons into viable prototypes.

Alex learns interrogation tactics and diplomatic negotiation and how to withstand torture.

Alex Danvers already knew a thing or two about fighting and sacrifice but now Alex knows more than ever about _surviving_ . And maybe in her darkest thoughts she finds comfort in knowing that now if she dies it won’t be at the bottom of a bottle. It’ll be for the right reasons, in a blaze of glory, protecting the world, protecting _her sister_.

She still wonders if her easy-going pacifist of a father would be disappointed in having a solider for daughter instead of just a scientist.

Her sparring partners are more than a little worse for wear on the days when those thoughts plague her the worst.

Alex gets an idea while Henshaw is talking about the nonverbal cues involved in making a lie convincing.

It isn’t anything she hasn’t heard before, their instructors lecture often on the importance of not telegraphing your next move in a fight but it sparks a plan.

Alex figures Henshaw must be clocking nearly invisible shifts in body language, the flick of an eye or the twitch of a muscle.

So Alex decides to think through a complex series of attacks while letting her body perform entirely different movesets.

And on an what starts off as an average Tuesday more than half a year after embarking on this crazy chapter of her life Alex Danvers is the first to beat Director Hank Henshaw in hand to hand combat.

Alex can barely keep the grin off her face at the hint of pride she swears she can see in the Director’s eyes.

She bounces on her toes trying to disperse the frenetic energy coursing through her body and happily accepts a fist bump from Vasquez.

“So does that mean I’m ready?” Alex asks Director Henshaw recalling the very first conversation she had within the walls of the DEO.

“Two days.”

“Sir?”

“You have two days off, You come back and beat me again? Then you’ll be ready.”

Henshaw continues before Alex can open her mouth to object.

“You haven’t seen the light of day barring outside training exercises in nearly nine months Danvers so no arguments just go.”

Alex is about to try protesting again that she doesn't even have anywhere _to_ go.

She isn't quite ready to face Kara. Alex knows she's different, not the same girl who walked out of her—no Kara's apartment all those months ago and she doesn't just mean the newly sculpted muscle Kara will feel the second her sister bear hugs her.

She isn't ready to face Kara's well meaning inquisition of what's she's been up to or why six months is slowly but surely stretching into a year. Especially not if she plans on staying in the right mindset to beat Director Henshaw a second time.

Her thoughts are interrupted as Henshaw continues.

“The D.E.O owns a few residential buildings in the city. Should that be of interest, talk to Pam over in HR. She can get you set up with an apartment.”

How…

But Director Henshaw is already striding away to take on the next opponent while Alex blinks, slowly trying to figure out how it was the Director seemed to know exactly why she was so hesitant to leave.

Vasquez slings an arm around a still slightly dazed Alex, “C’mon slugger I’ll give you a ride to city HQ you might as well get acquainted with Pam before you officially get your agent credentials, something tells me you’ll be seeing ALOT of her. No worries though Pam is very easy on the eyes.” Vasquez proclaims with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.

Alex shoves her laughing friend, “You have a wife, dude.”

“One who agrees with me!” Vasquez exclaims through their fit of laughter.

Alex can only shake her head at Vasquez’s shit eating grin, knowing Vasquez and their wife had the kind of true love soulmate bond that rivaled even her own parents’.

Alex lets herself be led out of the training room as Vasquez mentions making a quick pit stop to the desert base’s own small HR office that really only exists as a place for paperwork to be collected before being sent to Pam. Vasquez mentions bringing the accumulated paperwork whenever visiting Pam from the remote base is always a good way to start the interaction off in the woman’s good graces.

It was common knowledge even among recruits that you did _not_ want to end up on Pam’s bad side.

Every single person associated with the DEO from the custodial staff to accounting, from med staff to field agents and every operative in between underwent the same training.

Pam holds several new recruit records and from what Alex has gathered was not one to cross long before she set any of them.

The last sound Alex hears as the door swings closed is the thud from the body of a recruit who got too cocky watching Alex take down the Director, erroneously believing their boss was having an off day.  

A few hours later Alex is standing in a fully furnished apartment a block away from the DEO city headquarters.

Alex falls in love with it instantly.

It's small but not cramped.

The glass doors to the balcony let in even more light than the large windows in her old place but the heavy blue curtains block it out just as easily leaving Alex to wonder why she never replaced the sheer curtains Kara purchased for her old apartment that perpetually left her hungover self vulnerable to the harsh morning light.

She makes her way out to the balcony only to stop dead before she can even take in the resplendent view of the mid-afternoon sun glinting off National City's skyline.

The balcony runs the entire length of her apartment but there's a makeshift hip-high wall cutting it nearly in half. The further end having been made into a habitat ideal for Littlefoot to enjoy the sun, complete with dirt deep enough for her to burrow but not high enough where she could climb onto any of the ledges.

Alex doesn't know whether to just appreciate how perfect the place is or be creeped out by it.

She heads back inside banishing the ‘how the fuck’ factor to a dusty corner in her brain, determined to just enjoy a room that isn’t a damn cave.

And the place—her place honestly is _amazing._  It’s got a fireplace and the biggest bed Alex has ever seen in person. She gets the sudden urge to take a running leap onto it and jump up and down like a little kid just ‘cause she can.

She refrains, opting to hop up on the island counter instead. There’s something irking her but she can’t figure out quite what it is.

She sits cross legged, resting her chin on her hands as she observes the room.

It hits her a few minutes later.

The ‘dining room’ table.

The island she’s perched on is more than sufficient and even without the hectic work life she’s anticipating Alex hardly sees many dinner parties in her future.

The table and chair set is a waste of space that Alex knows exactly how to make better use of.

She shoots Vasquez a text knowing it hasn’t been that long since her friend dropped her off with a new set of keys and the bag she packed for show all those months ago. Alex’s own car is still parked somewhere in the depths of the D.E.O’s garage, she hopes.

Still Alex asks for a favor offering up a bribe of pizza and beer if they agree.

Alex laughs out loud when her phone chimes with a text that reads ‘fine but you’re springing for the good shit.’

Alex jogs out of her new apartment with her phone pressed to her ear trying to track down what she needs while she makes the run for provisions.

Vasquez shows up within the hour in a pickup truck that Alex doesn't question with Alex's requested whiteboard in the bed.

Between the two of them getting the dining set out and the whiteboard in doesn’t take very long at all.

Two trips and a bit of fussing over adjustments later, they're both sprawled out on Alex's couch.

Alex sips her beer glancing around the room again when a thought occurs to her.

“So is it just agents living in these ‘D.E.O. owned residential buildings’? Alex asks doing her best impression of Henshaw with the last few words.

Vasquez taps their own bottle against their lip, “Sort of? It’s a lot of new recruits. It’s one less headache to deal with, ya know 'cause a bunch aren't originally from the area.”

“Logic in the D.E.O. bizarrrro.”

Vasquez snorts a little but does their best to level Alex with a ‘judge-y’ look for her dorky 90's action-comedy reference.

“Although if I’m not mistaken a surprising number of retired agents opt in too. But if you mean ‘civilians’,”

Alex nods, rising from her prone position to snag some plates and the pizza box off the counter.

“There’s a decent population but it’s restricted to agent affiliations”

Alex pauses in her journey from counter back to couch.

“They don't know, of course,” Vasquez responds to Alex's apparent confusion, “They just think they lucked into a crazy rent control situation. Altogether it's enough to pretty much fill the held properties.”

Alex looks a little skeptical but says nothing as she drops the pizza on the table in front of them.

“How come you and Erin never took advantage?”

“Can't imagine living anywhere but the gayborhood.” Vasquez says with a grin.

Alex just rolls her eyes content to stuff her face in lieu of a response.

“So anyway what’s up with _that_?” Vasquez asks around a mouthful of pizza while eyeing the meticulously placed whiteboard.

Alex places her pizza back on the plate picking at it more than eating it. “My dad wasn’t exactly the most conventional of people.” Is what she finally settles on saying. “Growing up I was encouraged to embrace my soulmate connection. I was freely scribbling on myself before I could write….and when I learned to do that….. ”

Alex doesn't even realize she's started to rub the spot on her forearm where the last of the ink to adorn her skin has long since faded.

“Well lets just say it's been almost a year and I still have a hard time keeping myself from absentmindedly jotting down equations or doodling.”

When it doesn't seem like Alex will continue Vasquez asks, “So what happened?”

They weren't typically one to ask leading questions but it seemed like Alex _needed_ to talk about it and if there was one thing Vasquez had learned about their friend it's Alex wouldn't spill anything without a little push at the very least.

“About two years ago my soulmate just quit writing, it wasn't the first time and it was fine.” Alex said in a tone that implied it was anything but.

“Then around six months after that some nafka wrote her number on his arm, said something about having a great time. It happened more than once.”

“Fuck.” Vasquez’s succinct response startles a wet laugh from Alex.

“Yea, even after that I didn't break the habit of writing. Then I got Henshaw's offer and decided the DEO could be more than a metaphorical clean slate.”

“The Latin.”

“Mmhmm. My soulmate was never much a believer in the whole fate thing.”

Alex notices Vasquez unconsciously rubbing the pattern permanently inked onto their ring finger and wishes it didn't cause a pang to echo in her chest.

“Anyway I’m hoping the whiteboard’ll take bit of the ‘ol edge off.” Alex shoots for lofty humor but it falls flat. To their credit Vasquez just grins softly, and then punches Alex in the arm before insisting she come over for dinner next week to meet Erin.

Their wife was better at the whole comforting people in a socially expected manner. They figure Alex could do with a little looking after every once in awhile in conjunction with their more offbeat brand of support.

Some time after the last of the beer is gone and the pizza's been put away Vasquez leaves with a hug and a promise to pick Alex up in two days time for her rematch with the Director since her own car is still presumably at the base.

Alone in the silence, Alex knows she should take advantage of the quiet.

The DEO is _never_ quiet not with constantly rotating shifts and the hum of a power supply that can never afford to go down.

Sleep is calling, the lure of a morning with no need for an alarm almost too much to resist.

Alex picks up a dry erase marker instead.

_I don’t even think you’d believe me if I told you what I’d been up to these last few months….._

_Fun fact: I now have the skill set to make every shitty person in your small town rue the day they ever messed with you...if I ya know knew where you lived_

_So I can now say I’ve been waterboarded. Well I can’t_ ** _say_** _it... whatever I still maintain finding that first girl’s phone number was worse_

_Department of Extranormal-Operations Agent Alex Danvers, it's official I made it. Sometimes I wonder if you're Officer 'Ducky’. My standard cover’s an FBI agent think we'd fall back on the old cops vs. feds cliché?_

_Apparently I’m on a fucking new agent probation period which means no actual field missions just yet_

_The tech I have access to now is pretty fucking rad though, sometimes I wish I could tell my mom what I actually do just to rub the resources in her face_

_I met Hannah's soulmate today he's nice, I guess. a little boring for a secret agent but then I guess I can’t speak much to the whole soulmate thing can I?_

_Gotta go to Costco Kara’s finally coming over to see the new place._

_My probationary period is up and a year after all this started I finally get to go out on my first field mission!_

_This is real, holy shit this is real. I mean it’s not like the endless months of intense training weren’t real but Ducky this is…..this is….._

_The adrenaline high after a successful mission is like nothing I've ever felt. I wish you were here to celebrate with me._

_Vassquzz tok me out me out 4 drinks.Their awesome. They hav a wife tho. bashertsss And tats  wonder what ya'd do if I got one were kids when you said u wldnt care. wish ud stop getting ink smudges on ur hand then I could pretend u were dead stead if just not wantin me_

_I don't know why I feel the need to apologize. It's not like you saw any of that drunken mess last night... still I'm glad you're not dead._

_I shot someone today. an alien, we’re encouraged to depersonalize them. It’s us or them and I mean he was a criminal I shouldn’t feel bad about it but shit Ducky it’s nothing like shooting a paper target or even the holoprograms we trained with._

_Today’s mission required jumping out of a plane. It was awesome._

_Littlefoot’s getting so big. I’m glad Kara can feed her when I’m not around. sometimes I wonder why I even bothered getting another apartment since I practically live in the DEO barracks even though they’re technically for new recruits._

_Hannah’s dead. I killed three aliens today. Their blood was purple. I can’t get it off my hands._

_Kara came over for sister night I hate that I couldn't tell her why her purple cardigan made me flinch. I don't know that I could tell her even if I was allowed to._

_Kara's blood is red.she’s alive. Kara's blood is red she's alive Kara's blood is red she's alive..._

_I’ve been cleared to return to active duty. Henshaw said he was impressed with how I handled the mission and took charge with our team leader among our squadron’s fallen_

_We tracked a Fort Rozz escapee causing trouble all the way to Chicago. I’d send a memo to the higher ups about stepping up the satellite offices but I found the most amazing food truck so..._

_It’s Hannah’s birthday._

_I got my own lab today, technically I’ve been doing official ‘lab’ work for the DEO since before I was officially an agent but now I have a lab like. it’s mine. Someone’ll be like ‘hey can you run this to agent danvers’ lab. Like that’s a thing now._

_Kara graduated today. She’s come such a long way. She misses you ya know._

_We were hunting a dangerous shapeshifter. He killed half our team by the time the rest of us cornered him. He knew there was no way out. He transformed into a little girl before killing two more of my team. I shot him in between the eyes. I know it wasn’t real, I know I did what I had to but I’ll never get the girl’s face he stole out of my head._

_Erin knitted me a sweater…..like honest to god...knitted... a sweater....for me. It's got a giant 'A’ on it like a weasley sweater in silver and green it's the comfiest best article of clothing I currently own._

_I’m running my first op today. It's a new record. Quickest a rookie has assumed a command position._

_I sincerely hope you are a cop and you have several cases that require you to crawl around the sewers because I had to today it was awful and if I'm suffering you should be too. Soulmate solidarity dude and maybe a little payback._

_So Kara got a job as Cat Grant’s personal assistant. No one's lasted more than 2 months in that position I don’t think the queen of all media knew what was coming when she hired Kara. That little ball of underestimated sunshine is already at the six month mark....like it’s so remarkable a bunch of prominent 'movers and shakers' are actually trying to poach her..._

_I lost someone under my command today. His son was just born. Henshaw said it wasn't my fault that there was nothing I could've done differently. That doesn't change the fact that he was my responsibility and now his son will grow up without a father. I condemned his kid to that life and Rao his soulmate_

_Canadian scientists named a new species of ceratopsian_ _from fossils originally collected in 1958. My first thought was I wonder if you heard. I had a pen halfway to my arm to tell you anyway. I hate that. But c’mon Xenoceratops foremostensis. “alien horned-face” …..._

_I don’t know why Kara thought hosting Thanksgiving at her place would somehow avoid a fight between me and mom. I love Kara I do but I think I did too good a job shielding her from Eliza's more unpleasant qualities._

_My mother asked why I’m not with my soulmate yet. So thanks for_ ** _that_** _conversation_

 _We captured an alien today. A talker. I don’t know how I didn’t put it together before now but Alura, Kara’s_ **_mother_ ** _was responsible for incarcerating a shitton of the Fort Rozz escapees. They would do anything for revenge on Alura, Alura who perished with Krypton. And oh god If they find out about Kara. her only heir.... the last remaining daughter of Krypton..._

_So apparently in the history of the DEO no one’s quite run into this situation before….our prisoner had a…...pet..it’s- it’s I was gunna say something science-y but duude it’s a tiny freakin’ dragon!_

_Vasquez has adopted it…...I expected the director to put up more of a fight? But he just sighed? And walked away muttering?_

_Apparently to get around the confidentiality clause (on paper for HR as if Erin doesn’t know) Vasquez told Erin I was messing around in the lab….which in no way gave me any ideas…_

_Vasquez named it toothless bc of course they did_

_Kara’s started instituting a game night since she and Winn have been getting closer which is fine but we’re never hosting it at my place again...it’s a good thing Winn was getting another drink when Kara ‘accidentally’ broke the coffee table messing up the board_

_Kara tried to have an intervention for me. It’s been a rough few months injury wise…. but Duck she thinks I joined some kind of secret underground fight club..I need to vet sister movie night choices more carefully apparently_

_Mark me down for never taking hostage negotiation duty again...I just have to keep reminding myself that it worked out...which I’ll have plenty of time to do as I fill out all of Pam’s forms_

_This year my mother’s mad at me for not setting a good example in my romantic life for Kara nevermind she doesn’t even have soul marks yet so thanks for that too._

_I swear almost every time Kara talks about work I get the urge to punch Cat Grant in the face. You'd bail me out, right?_

_I got stuck on inventory duty for 'disobeying’ orders and I found some kind of Kryptonian artifact that evidently came from Kara's pod. I've smuggled it into my lab for further examination._

_It’s been four years to the day that number appeared on my arm. Why couldn’t you just screw other people without screwing me in the process…  My life would be so much easier if I could hate you_

_Something’s brewing. The Fort Rozz criminals have been largely quiet since landing, hence the DEO’s emphasis on hunting them. Until the last few months anyway. We've been monitoring it obviously but the activity has come to the attention of some pretty powerful people. There’s supposedly a summit is gathering in Geneva. The director is sending a few of us to go check it out. I get to use secret service credentials. I wonder if you'd still think something like that was cool._

_**********************_

Alex glances at her watch for the fifth time in as many seconds employing every shred of her training to keep from sighing.

She loves her sister, is more than happy to help out in a crisis especially one as normal as picking out clothes for a blind date but now twenty minutes until boarding and stuck behind an older woman who's insisting far too loudly that her _very_ expensive perfume be exempt from the carry-on volume restrictions…

Well Alex is kind of wishing she'd just told Kara to text pictures of her wardrobe.

She immediately admonishes herself for the thought. As busy as she is with the D.E.O. making time for Kara is a priority. Even if most people would label her insane for the pitstop two hours before an international flight out of NCX. There was after all a reason for the claims that the ‘10’ in NC _X_ stood for how many hours beforehand you should arrive for your flight.

Alex runs a hand through her hair, fingers twitching towards her badge as the woman overdramaticaly carries on about her constitutional rights until she turns red in the face underneath her wrinkles.

Alex has sixteen minutes to make to her gate which is oh-so-conveniently placed on the opposite side of the terminal. At least Vasquez was able to pass along that information complete with an optimal route map while Alex waits in this hell. So at least stopping by the departures board won't slow her down.

She's grateful the other agents assigned to this mission are scattered throughout the plane inhabiting personas who don't know her.

So at least she won't have to deal with shit for almost missing the flight.

If the line ever actually even _moves._

Alex curses Hank for not letting her take one of the D.E.O. aircrafts. She would swear she saw hints of a smirk as he droned on about civil servants not arriving on private or experimental carriers.

Finally after ten minutes the woman is persuaded to check her bag and is placated with free miles and future upgrades.

Alex rolls her eyes. She would've tazed the woman a good twenty minutes ago. There's a reason she doesn't work in customer service.

Or more regulated branches of the government.

By the time she gets through security, a feat that would've been impossible without some borrowed tech to conceal everything but her federal issue firearm, she's under the five minute mark.

Alex groans as she grips her bag tighter and takes off sprinting. The phone in her pocket goes off but she doesn't break her stride to check it.

She makes it to the gate with seconds to spare. She slips in as the the final boarding call echoes across the area.

And soon wishes she had missed the damn flight altogether.

Alex was by no means a nervous flyer but something about commercial airlines unsettled her. If she ever opened up about this feeling, no doubt the D.E.O mandated therapist would cite unresolved trauma from her dad's death.

But the unease had been there long before her father's plane went down. Alex could practically hear Hallie, a big believer in reincarnation going on about the probability that a fiery wreck was what claimed her in some other life.

Stowing her bag in the overhead bin it never occurred to her to be concerned it would be what ended this one.

The kid in the aisle seat of her assigned row had jumped up when she approached despite the headphones situated snugly over his snapback, making an attempt to help with her carry-on.

It only took one look to stop the would be good samaritan in his tracks.  

At least the look garnered her a respectful nod instead of anything more trying. She just made the flight it wouldn't due to be kicked off for punching a guy in the face. Besides her glare didn't seem to damper his exuberance as he rambled about flying overseas to meet his soulmate.

A chatty neighbor was not at all how Alex wanted to spend this flight. At least as she was the last passenger on the plane it wasn't long before they were underway.

Alex embraced the quiet that always seemed to settle over passengers at take-off. Leaning back and closing her eyes to orient herself after the hassle of getting here.

It soon became apparent however that silent contemplation was not in the cards. The seat next to her had gone mute but the leg frantically bouncing up and down betrayed the occupant’s nerves.

Maybe it was some deep buried nostalgia for imagined trips to meet her own soulmate or maybe it was the way the light in his eyes reminded her of Kara.

Whatever it was, Alex felt the odd pull to offer comfort.

She was thinking about the best way to try and help when she heard what could easily be misconstrued as a gunshot or car backfiring.

By some people.

Alex however, knew, even without the plane’s jolt or the smell of burning machinery they'd lost the left engine.

Her mind goes into overdrive calculating the odds. They haven't been in the air long. Only one engine's blown. She can think of two viable locations not including circling back to the tarmac for an emergency landing.

Statistically speaking their chances are-

A strangled choke rips her from her revier.

One look to the kid, and really he must be closer to Kara's age than an actual child, tells her he's in the throws of a panic attack.

Aside from his laboured breathing the rest of the cabin has gone eerily silent. The strained hush a far cry from the previous quietude that had blanketed take-off.

Alex snaps herself out of it, there's no time to dwell on the atmosphere. She shifts her attention.

“Okay deep breaths-

Alex wracks her brain for a name but she's drawing a blank, his soulmate's name is Mekhi but did he even mention his own?

“What's your name kid?”

All she receives in response is a wild head shake and terrified stare.

“Gotta work with me kid, in and out. Do it for Mekhi.”

She watches as he tightens the grip on his armrest, trying to breathe.

She can't help but snort as he grits out, “didn't.think.you.were.listening.”

“I wasn't, I've got an eidetic memory.”

He chokes on a laugh this time instead of the air but she'll take it.

“Listen, kid-

“Blaize, it's Blaize.”

Alex reaches over to place a hand on his shoulder, careful not catch his dreads with her watch.

"Listen Blaize, we're gunna be fine.”

She's still holding his eyes when another loud explosion rocks the plane. She's slammed back into her seat as they dip into a nosedive.

All Alex can do is close her eyes.

She tries to filter out the screams and the sobs. The panic and commotion as nearly everyone around her starts scrambling for a pen but all she can think is her mother won't have anything to bury.

Again.

New statistics fill her head.

The probability that her mom would lose her bashert and tokhter in separate plane crashes over a decade apart.

That Kara would lose her entire world and two of the people who tried make the new one more bearable.

The probability of never meeting your soulmate before you die.

The probability hers even cares.

A purposeful jab brings her back to her surroundings. It takes a minute for her brain to catch up to the marker hovering in front of her face.

Her gaze follows the metallic sharpie clutched in a bruisng grip, up past the shaking arm and over to Blaize’s face, tear-stained but determined and so painfully earnest.

She reaches out, part reflex, part not wanting to keep this _kid_ from his soulmate in what might well be his last minutes.

He nods sharply and returns to desperately scribbling across his arms, the silver from his own marker stark agaisnt his dark skin.

Alex redirects her gaze to her own arms illuminated by the too bright light of the engine fire. She presses the tip of the marker to her arm without thinking.

The disaster protocol ingrained in her long ago.

_Alexandra Danvers. National City._

Enough information, ideally, for identification but not enough for identity theft. Then….

_Mom I'm sorry._

_Kara i love you._

_I forgive you du-_

Alex stops, jerking out of her near trance. Writing was hardly second nature anymore but wearing the soulmark repellent was. She bites her tongue to reign in the hysterical laughter bubbling in her chest. It was morbidly amusing to her that her last words would be lost forever before they even could form _._

And then there’s Kara.

And then the plane is leveling off.

And then the world is sideways.

And then they've hit water.

And then it's hours later.

And Alex doesn't remember aiding the evacuation. And Alex doesn't remember the DEO intercepting the coast guard to grab their people from the chaos. And she doesn't remember fighting with Dr. Hamilton. Or Henshaw telling her to get some rest because they had much to discuss.

And she doesn't remember getting to Kara’s door but she cant forget a single word of their fight. Kara's look of devastation feeling like it's carved into her chest.

And then she’s in her apartment death grip on a marker of her own. Thoughts racing and colliding with each other. Fighting with Kara and almost dying. Her weekly call with Eliza coming up who has no idea her daughter almost died tonight. Kara's excitement when she first discovered potstickers and the first time ducky promised they were stuck with each other forever. The look on Blaize's face as they were going down and the look on Kara's when she told Alex to go. Her pride at seeing Kara basking overridden by her own fear. Fear greater than the fear she felt plummeting to a fiery death. Fear because Kara exposed herself. For _her._ To save her life. And Kara can’t take that back, doesn’t want to take it back. Kara was so happy, she put herself at risk to save her and she was _happy_. But anything that happens now will be Alex’s fault.

And Alex wants ducky, wants her bashert to tell her everything will be okay, to hold her because she almost _died._ Wants the serenity she glimpsed on Blaize’s face, safe on a lifeboat as he traced a few letters imprinted on his arm over and over.

She wants someone to care more about her almost dying than about Kara's secret. Because she certainly doesn't. All she can think about is how the fuck she's supposed to protect her sister from the world or the aliens who'd make her suffer before painfully killing her for Alura’s 'crimes’.

Alex suddenly grips the marker she hadn't even noticed she was twirling between her fingers.

She glances at the whiteboard, her swirling thoughts coming to one sharp focus.

_How can I possibly protect Kara from herself or my organization if I cant even protect her from me._

And she stops inches from the board staring at the uncapped marker like it's newly discovered alien tech.

Suddenly a smell that's comforted her through most of her life is making her stomach turn.

The nasuea swiftly turns to anger and Alex hurls the marker across the room but there's no satisfaction as it pings off her hanging plant.

She stands, her heavy breathing the only sound in the room save for the soft scratching coming from underneath her bed.

Littlefoot’s presence doesn't soothe her only seems to remind her just how alone she is in this moment.

She wishes desperately for her father. Not for the first time but more ficerly than she has since her teens.

She needs a sounding board for all her messed up thoughts. One that can respond in the way inanimate objects can't even if it's just a hug and platitudes.

Her dad rarely resorted to platitudes, and when he did he had a way of making even the most trite sound genuine.

It was a trait shared by her soulmate. Ducky had been so good at being comforting from a distance.

Alex paces in violent, halting steps. Three forward, four back.

Her intrusive inner voice, that sounds far too much like Eliza, sneers at her yearning for the impossible.

Three forward, four back.

It doesn't change how badly she wishes she could _tell_ all of this to Jeremiah.

Three forward, four back.

And she knows her dad _can't_. And that hurts but not nearly as much as how much she wants Ducky as well.

Three forward, four back.

Because Ducky _can_ but ducky _won't_ and bottom line the stupid whiteboard just isn't cutting it tonight.

Alex grabs the eraser swiping a sharp swath through the board. Chunks of words are gone but it's not enough. The eraser falls from her fingertips as she lunges for the board. Using her hands to scrub it clean.

She knocks it to the ground in her frenzy narrowly missing shattering the glass of her balcony doors.

She barely spares a glance at the havoc wreaked across her apartment,  eyes laser focused on her trembling hands.

None of the ink clings to her skin.

And Alex breaks.

The impact of hitting the ground jars her knees as she sinks to floor sobbing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a billion thanks to [nerdsbianhokie](http://nerdsbianhokie.tumblr.com/) for listening to my ramblings as I try to work out stoy kinks and for helping out with chp breaks and pacing and whatnot bc my brain absolutely thinks 30k of blocked italics in one chp is a perfectly acceptable thing to do...
> 
> as always [change-the-rules](http://change-the-rules.tumblr.com/) is where you will have a significantly better chance actually reaching me than here


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